Tesla board wants to grant Musk $1T in stock, Norway wealth fund says nope

Norway's sovereign wealth fund has opposed Tesla CEO Elon Musk's proposed $1 trillion share award, which the carmaker's board says is necessary to retain him. Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), the world's largest such fund, voted against the proposal despite support from investors including Baron Capital. Several major …

[JimmyPage]

Well done Norway !

That's all.

[The man with a spanner]

Re: Well done Norway !

Its a weird conundrum.

The markets see Trump as integral to the success of Tesla, and "tank" when there is a threat to his position as there is the view that he could up sticks and go elsewhere.

He is erratic (is this the ketamine talking) and may well do things that hurt his own position.

So, if he were to throw his toys out of his pram, as the biggest shareholder, he would be injuring himself.

I wouldn't put it past him, but it is good that the clear eyed Norwegians call his bluff. They are doing us all a favour.

[that one in the corner]

Re: Well done Norway !

Trump?

Did you mean Musk?

Or did I miss some US news?

[The man with a spanner]

Re: Well done Norway !

Opps.... I did mean Musk

[BartyFartsLast]

Re: Well done Norway !

Not just the Norwegians, there are a few other objectors.

It is obscene, there is no way on this planet he is worth that much money, he's lifted his skirts and shown the world what he is, tanking Tesla sales and reputation in the process, the best thing the shareholders could do at this point for their investment is remove him and his acolytes from the board.

[krakead]

If ever further proof were needed that the Tesla board is nothing but Elmo's sock puppets, this is it. How anyone can propose this with a straight face is beyond me. He is *literally* aiming to become Dr Evil.

[tony72]

Have you actually looked at the package? As with the previous package, Tesla would have to achieve hugely ambitious milestones in order for Elon to get his shares. Market cap of $8.5 trillion. Operating profit of $400 billion. 20 million Tesla vehicles on the road. 10 million FSD subscriptions. Etc, etc. It's not as if he's asking for a handout. If Tesla hits even a few of those milestones, *all* Tesla investors will do extremely well. Which is why most supported the previous comp package, and I suspect will support this one too. In a world where CEOs commonly get massively rewarded for failure and cutting jobs, *more* CEOs should have their compensation tied to ambitious success targets like Elon.

[Fonant]

There can be no practical reason why Elon Musk (or anyone else, for that matter) NEEDS this amount of money for living and pleasure.

We have a growing problem in the world: the vast majority of monetary wealth is held by just a few ultra-rich people. This causes two major problems:

1) These people have more financial power than whole countries. So they can easily undermine democracy. Then they can change laws so that they can become even richer. This positive feedback loop is very difficult to break.

2) The money the ultra-rich are hoarding is not available to keep countries' economies working. Whole populations are starved of cash that could otherwise be used to pay for public services, and support for those in need. This is why countries are imposing tax rises on populations who have seen living standards fall.

[xcdb]

Wonder if you could explain what you mean with your second point?

Aside from borrowing from banks using over-valued shares as collateral - which I would agree could distort capital flow to others - I'm not sure how the rest follows. It's not like its stuffed in their collective mattress...

[AndyS]

Mattresses

The thing is, it very much IS stuffed in their collective mattresses.

Let's look at three people, Bob, Mary, and Elon.

Bob works on a building site, earns £25k/year, and spends about £25k/year. Roughly 100% of his wages go straight back and around the economy. He's got roughly zero savings, and rents his home.

Mary works in a hospital, and earns £100k/year. She's invested a fair bit, and also has significant mortgage payments. She spends about £70k/year, or roughly 70%. The rest is mortgage & investments - probably about £500k by the end of her career. She'll spend some in retirement, and leave the rest to her kids.

Elon gets about £500 MILLION per year. He splashes his money around, buys a private island, a few business jets, that sort of stuff. Spends maybe £100 million. That's about 90% horded, not going anywhere. He's currently sitting on something like $500 BILLION of cash & shares, which he will not (and in fact cannot) ever spend. You know Tanzania? That's 6 and a half years of the GDP of the entire country, not going anywhere, not doing anything.

It's a big mattress, but it's very much stuffed, and that money isn't available to help economies grow, products move, living conditions improve, infrastructure be built, social services be run, etc.

[David Hicklin]

Re: Mattresses

> Let's look at three people, Bob, Mary, and Elon.

What you have described there is very much akin to "the speed of money" where the money is flowing freely between people, business and governments. To fast and you get inflation, too slow and a recession looms.

In Muskrats case there is a great big sodding dam holding back 90% of that money river, and the mega rich just keep on building bigger dams

[xcdb]

Re: Mattresses

Ok, so is the problem that while much of their liquid assets may well be getting into the financial system as normal, that due to the nature of simply having vastly more money available to them, the super rich put a far greater percentage of their wealth into long-lived assets than the general population?

[xcdb]

Re: Mattresses

Thanks for the response, AndyS.

I still think I must be missing something though as aside from borrowing against them, nominal wealth sitting as e.g. shares is just a number in a database somewhere. It's no more available for him to spend on anything as the average persons house is to them.

There are likely thousands of pensioners in the south of England who bought houses years ago for modest sums and which are now worth £millions. They certainly don't seem like they're (collectively) hoarding £billions to me.

I'm no fan of the pareto principle and especially not the extremes we're discussing, but I still don't see how the wealth is hoarded in a way unavailable to the system at large. In your example, Mary invested a total of £500k. It wasn't spent and so circulated immediately as in Bob, but it did go into the financial system - e.g. as mortgages for others like Mary. That Elon will have 50,000x more available to invest than Mary doesn't necessarily mean it isn't available to the financial system.

(Edit: this was posted before seeing David's comment, so learned something there but leaving this up anyway :)

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing is, the top value of the package is so ridiculously high, even missing most targets will earn him ludicrous amounts of money. And it seems some targets aren't actually difficult

https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/musks-record-tesla-package-will-pay-him-tens-billions-even-if-he-misses-most-2025-10-09/

[doublelayer]

Some of those milestones are really hard. Some of them are not. For example, getting 20 million Teslas sounds next to impossible except they're already starting with eight of those millions in the bag. The reward amounts are also huge. The headline figure of a trillion in stock does require a bunch of unlikely things, but for context, it means granting an award of about 11% of the company if he succeeds in addition to the amount he already has, and the company and investors will pay the inevitable price of obtaining that 11% to hand to him, making it substantially more expensive than it sounds (and it sounds ridiculous). The combination is that he can get part of that award for completing the easy milestones and still get far more shares than most knowledgeable board members or investors would be at all happy with.

[MachDiamond]

"it means granting an award of about 11% of the company if he succeeds in addition to the amount he already has"

That 11% is figured by Market Cap. It's a xN multiplier compared to total net profits, capital assets, etc.

If Tesla did release a stripped down/low cost vehicle sold at a minimal margin, it could hit 20 million vehicles produced without much fuss. If they aren't built very well, they could wind up costing the company via warranty repair charges. Manipulating the stock price to get it to a certain level (at a P/E of 1000) is just more of same.

Blocking Elon's key card and putting all of the personal things from his office in a box where it can be retrieved from the security office might be a much better step if followed by the board installing competent management who are focusing on the long term success of the company and building up a very solid foundation.

Stock costs money to manage. Companies that are publicly traded have to spend an enormous amount every year complying with regulations, investor relations and so forth. The argument that it doesn't cost Tesla anything to hand Elon stock isn't correct. They could reduce corporate overhead by paying a reasonable salary and giving stock bonuses for foundational metrics not including market cap.

Maybe the trillion dollar prize is way out of reach, but perhaps another $500bn isn't and the ultimate package is just a distraction so people will vote for it thinking it has little chance of happening, but if it does, their stock will be worth so much more too. Diluted as it may be.

[doublelayer]

"The argument that it doesn't cost Tesla anything to hand Elon stock isn't correct."

Just checking, who was making that argument? Because my argument was that A) 11% is hideously expensive just for that and B) the overhead of trying to do that would be so much more than that that it would be disastrous to attempt.

[MachDiamond]

"Just checking, who was making that argument? "

Not here. Most here have more experience in the world. In other forums, there are plenty that think stock shares are a way to print money for companies with zero cost.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Bollocks. NOBODY deserves a trillion dollar payday.

[MachDiamond]

"NOBODY deserves a trillion dollar payday."

If I were to come up with anti-grav tech that was cheap and worked, that could be worth a trillion bucks. A "Mr Fusion". That sort of thing.

Short of some ground-breaking invention, I have to agree. Elon is no engineer and his design foray into vehicles has fell flat on it's face with Cybercab seemingly ready to follow in those footsteps.

[Not Yb]

No one person is ever worth being paid $1 trillion in stock/options, regardless of their supposed benefit to whatever company it is. This would be ridiculous for any company, not just Tesla.

Musk isn't as special as his fanboys think he is.

LOL, you didn't even do the bare minimum for this flamebait... Tesla's market cap is NOT $8.5 trillion. It's $1.48T, so they're offering him 60% or so of their market cap, which would be insane for any other company, and is for this one, too. Nvidia (current winner in market cap at >$4T) pays CEO only around $50m, and said CEO has 'only' $98b in stock.

[MachDiamond]

"Tesla's market cap is NOT $8.5 trillion. It's $1.48T, so they're offering him 60% or so of their market cap, which would be insane for any other company, and is for this one, too."

The company would have to hit that $8.5tn market cap for the full award to be made. If it stays at $1.5tn, there's no trillion dollar stock award.

It would be a waste over the company issuing additional stock if they get to the $8tn market cap to raise more money the company could use to create new products. Giving all of that away to the age's largest charlatan is madness.

[JulieM]

When the rich get richer, you get poorer

Just so you know, if Musk gets his trillion, there is no way on this green Earth that you will ever see a single penny out of it.

[krakead]

I don't give a shit about the package details - that it can even be proposed is *obscene*. This is a man with more money than he'd ever need for a thousand lifetimes. *No one* is worth that amount of money, no matter the circumstances. Anyone who thinks this is justifiable needs to take a long hard look at themselves, and around at the world this sort of fucked up, monstrous greed and dick waving is building.

[martinusher]

Musk needs to reconsider his position

Musk's foray into politics has hurt his reputation -- his political bedfellows don't believe in 'green' anything and are actively working to undermine it (especially in the US). Their trade policies also make building these cars more expensive which opening the market to better organized competition that can produce product a lot faster and cheaper (BYD is just the biggest example, not the only one).

A year ago I would have regarded shorting Tesla stock as nonsensical. Today, not so much -- the company as it is at the moment is starting to look insolvent**. A trillion dollar stock grant would be just a way of diluting investors' holdings that will improve the financial picture at Tesla (and Musk) at the expense of the rest of the shareholders, the ones that paid money for their holdings. I can understand why the Norwegians would want to nix it, they want to preserve the value of their investment. The company has value but its no longer tied to a charismatic, mercurial individual. It would be better off without him.

(**IMO)

[Paul Herber]

Re: Musk needs to reconsider his position

"... don't believe in 'green' anything ..."

Has anyone suggested to Elmo about putting a good ol American V8 cast iron lump in a Tesla. Or two V8s. Call it a dual-motor!

[MyffyW]

Hybrid Theory

Upvote for making me giggle.

Seriously, there are better looking candidates to do that to, even from the risible recent history of American automotive adventures.

A Tesla with an internal combustion engine would be ugly meets obsolete.

[Phil O'Sophical]

Re: Hybrid Theory

I wouldn't call a big V8 ugly.

[Neil Barnes]

Re: Hybrid Theory

And yet, Youtube keeps offering me videos which claim such an engine swap has been made. I haven't watched any to know if it's actually been done, or if it's just clickbait.

[The commentard formerly known as Mister_C]

Re: Hybrid Theory

maybe it's just AI hallucinating again

[MachDiamond]

Re: Hybrid Theory

"I haven't watched any to know if it's actually been done, or if it's just clickbait."

Check Rich Rebuilds and see if he's ever finished his swap. I recall a couple of LS mods that were completed.

I don't see as much of a problem with sliding a dinosaur juice drive train under a Model S as much as the headache it would be to try and get it MOT'd and registered. (the US doesn't have MOT, but there can be a process similar enough depending on what State somebody lives in).

[MyffyW]

Re: Hybrid Theory

Consider also "One piece at a time" by Johnny Cash and his a description of the Psychobilly Cadillac

[mirachu]

Re: Hybrid Theory

It's been done, several times, for various reasons, at least one being that they were unable to get the electric drive train working again.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Hybrid Theory

That sounds like a must if there is ever a resumption of The Grand Tour.

[DS999]

Why?

It is a problem for people who have invested in Tesla. I haven't, so it doesn't affect me. If someone who is a shareholder thinks it is a bad deal but it gets approved, either sell the stock as protest or suck it up and live with the share dilution you're gonna endure. I think it is ludicrous that he thinks he's 1000x more valuable than Tim Cook who a lot of people looked at side eyed when he got the $1 billion over ten years deal from Apple. But Apple's market cap quadrupled during that time, so if he was overpaid at least Apple shareholders benefited from that overpayment.

Tesla's market cap would have to more than quadruple for Musk to max out the award, but there's no way that's worth 1000x as much, especially since Tesla's stock is about 20x overvalued over what it is really worth because he's such a good con man that he's always got another lie to tell them when his previous lie is exposed.

You'd think they'd worry about the decade without self driving technology he promised, the eight years without the new Roadster he promised, Tesla's auto sales clearly peaking and now in decline. But no, now they think Tesla is a robot company! People are dumb. Tesla shareholders, doubly so.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Why?

"It is a problem for people who have invested in Tesla. I haven't, so it doesn't affect me. "

When anything really big goes boom, lots of people get splashed indirectly. You might not be invested, but if the local grocery held a bunch of stock, they might get put out of business and you would then have to drive further for food.

Apple is something of a bubble too. Tim hasn't done much outside of the iPhone. Thus far, there hasn't been a massive amount of iPhone fatigue, but dumping over a grand on a new phone every year can't go on forever for most people. Under Steve's glare, a bunch of new products were release across different niches. iPhone, iMac, iPod, etc. It's dangerous to be a one trick pony. I don't think it would be a good idea for Apple to build cars, but they could supply the tech that goes into the cars on an OEM basis. That's what Google is doing (be afraid).

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Musk needs to reconsider his position

They believe in one green thing. The US dollar.

[xcdb]

Indeed. Perhaps intended to be argued down in public to something closer to reality so that it cannot be challenged in court later?

[MyffyW]

My opening gambit: $0bn + the horse you rode in on.

[Michael Strorm]

"...and the falling-to-bits Cybertruck you drove in on", surely?

[DS999]

A court challenge won't be successful

After his previous deal was nixed by Delaware's chancery courts, he moved the HQ to Texas and this award was approved after that move. Texas has some pretty wild west corporate laws where shareholders are not protected from malfeasance by executives and board of directors so such a suit would have no hope.

[MachDiamond]

Re: A court challenge won't be successful

"After his previous deal was nixed by Delaware's chancery courts, he moved the HQ to Texas and this award was approved after that move. "

What deal was approved? I don't recall any compensation packages for Elon being challenged in Texas courts. The other suits brought in the Delaware Court of Chancery don't transfer to Texas regardless of Tesla's corporate headquarters move. There's not going to mom if dad said no.

The Delaware court is much more sophisticated when it comes to large business legal issues which is why most companies prefer to be based there beyond the tax advantages. While they might not like a ruling, the chances of the judges understanding the cases will be much higher.

Stockholders re-voted on the $55bn compensation plan but it didn't remove the opinion of the judge that it was properly presented the first or second time and the BoD is not sufficiently at arms length from Elon to be properly unbiased. If it was a private company, there may have been no issue, but a publicly traded company is held to a much higher standard.

[DS999]

Re: A court challenge won't be successful

The board has already approved this $1 trillion compensation plan. Now it is before the shareholders who must vote in favor to officially enact it. In Delaware the board approved it, the shareholders enacted it, then some shareholders who had voted against it sued and the chancery court agreed with them the compensation and share dilution was excessive.

[MachDiamond]

Re: A court challenge won't be successful

"and the chancery court agreed with them the compensation and share dilution was excessive."

That was part of it, but the judge also opined that the package wasn't properly explained to the shareholders. Especially that some early goals were nearly automatic and somebody's pet cat could have been occupying the CEO's office and they would have been reached. To reward Elon for that with loads of compensation wasn't proper.

[Bebu sa Ware]

What was the EU offer around the Brexit fiasco again ?

"Norway or nothing." I believe.

I wouldn't give the blighter the time of day, certainly not Norway so it's a well deserved nothing.

Still he is likely to get the $1T and the Norwegian fund will likely slowly divest.

I never did work out which option the UK actually got with Boris and Co. at the helm — in hindsight seems like less than nothing.

[Claude Yeller]

Re: Less than nothing

"I never did work out which option the UK actually got with Boris and Co. at the helm — in hindsight seems like less than nothing."

Much less than nothing!

[MachDiamond]

Re: What was the EU offer around the Brexit fiasco again ?

"Still he is likely to get the $1T and the Norwegian fund will likely slowly divest."

CalPers will probably divest as well. The sell off by major funds might cause other institutional fund managers to take a cue and get out as well. It's a bit of "follow the leader" but it's likely those other funds might have some misgivings and seeing others bail out just gets the hillside to start moving.

It may not be any problem for Tesla to lose the investment from those funds as retail buyers gobble up the shares, but it will be safer for the market and the fund's beneficiaries.

[spuck]

Tesla stock down 4% is not horrible. They've had worse days than that and it seems to recover fine.

Everyone thinks His Muskiness is a genius that an do no wrong, but it's a very real possibility that Tesla might do even better with someone else as CEO.

There were a lot of people who thought that Apple would implode once Steve Jobs was gone. One could argue that the "vision" has faltered without him, but you can't argue with the financials that Cook has delivered or the health of the company.

[Oh Matron!]

If you're the owner of the fund in Norway, 4% is a loss of $680,000,000. I'd be a little upset if I lost this

Footnote:

The fund is Tesla's seventh-biggest owner with a 1.12 per cent stake worth $17 billion

[Charlie Clark]

Yes, but it's already made more than enough over the years with the investment and won't be worried by a single's day volatility. In fact, I already think it's reduced its share due to the governance problems. Maybe Trump will threaten Norway with tariffs even though Elon hates them? If it's good enough for Canada or Brazil, it's good enough for Norway, right Little Donny Dumb?

[HXO]

Ah, yes tax the huge exports from NO to US of herring and petroleum. That will make NO change its mind.

[Charlie Clark]

The movements in the shareprice tells us all we really need to know about the investors. A skilled and experienced investor like Norway explains it will vote against the award and the problems with the proposed award and the market throws a fit instead of applauding governance…

By chance today I dipped into a couple of "investor" shows on YouTube and they all seem to think that Musk can do no wrong: the expensive failure that is the Cybertruck has been forgotten; the much delayed and uninspiring Robotaxi launch has been forgiven; the problems with autonmous driving will be miraculously fixed in an update. Well, I guess that's better than reading the financials, which even without lower sales due to a tarnished brand, look bad. The revenue of $ 95 billion is only important if you understand that Tesla's profits are significantly and probably permanently down and it will soon be back burning cash. Competition in key markets is much fiercer and the enviromental credit scheme, responsible for most of Tesla's profits has gone.

[Not Yb]

The RoboTaxi launch, that as far as I know is still "invite only" to vetted candidates? Yeah, that's more of an invite-only influencer party than an actual launch.

[herman]

Tesla is an elevator stock - it goes up and down. I buy and sell a few Tesla shares every few months and made nice money - 22.5% gain this time.

[Anonymous Coward]

Their cars have looked basically the same for years now. Zero innovation that one can see. They still need someone to design headlights that don't blind every other road user.

[Flocke Kroes]

Tesla is massively over valued as a car company. Some of the excess valuation is because there are people out there who actually believe Musk will have Full Self Driving working real soon now. Even Musk could only get so far while not delivering FSD. The next chunk of fictional value comes from pretending Tesla is a humanoid robot company. The promise of robots are getting a bit tired so the new promise is AI. The greater fool investment strategy has been going great, which is why you get insane Musk worship on social media: people with a clue are pumping the stock before they cash out.

Musk's value as a Tesla CEO is his ability to not get meaningfully punished for securities fraud. The good news is Musk has said the only way he would be leaving was in a coffin. If I cared about Tesla going back to being a EV company I would send one. If I owned stock I would offer him $0 as that is more than sufficient to keep him front and centre making ridiculous promises about what Tesla will achieve next year.

I wonder how SpaceX investors feel about their money being used to buy a huge fleet of cyber trucks.

[Strahd Ivarius]

A car that transforms itself in a humanoid robot?

I think I already saw some documentary about this...

[MachDiamond]

"There were a lot of people who thought that Apple would implode once Steve Jobs was gone. One could argue that the "vision" has faltered without him, but you can't argue with the financials that Cook has delivered or the health of the company."

Apple continues to soldier on, but my feeling is that Mr iPhone Tim Cook is letting the foundational strength of Apple to erode away over time. Something may come along that knocks the iPhone off of its hill leaving Apple needing to scramble for other products that can fill the hole in revenue/profits. It doesn't seem prudent to keep going on with one product accounting for too much of revenue.

[John Smith 19]

Hmmm "the world's largest such fund,"

Would that be because while successive British governments were pi**ing the revue out in tax cuts to stay in power and support the unemployment lines their policies had created the Norwegians used it to invest in their future? I rather think so.

The UK ceased to be a net exporter of both oil and gas decades ago but Norway's wealth is assured.

And as long as they don't hand what's basically an obscene amount of shares (and hence wealth) to the musky one I think they will keep doing it.

[Paul Herber]

Re: Hmmm "the world's largest such fund,"

Norway used to be the poor man of northern Europe.

[LogicGate]

Re: Hmmm "the world's largest such fund,"

Norway set up the fund as a way to avoid having all the huge influx of revenue destroy Its economy. One example that was often used was how plundering gold from south America actually destroyed Spains economy. The effect of oil money on certain middle eastern states was also not to be emulated.

My impression is that the oil fund lubricates rather than than fuels the Norwegian state machinery.

Whether the oil and gas was always handled in the best way possible can be discussed If I recall correctly, peak oil production coincided with minimum Oil pricing. However I am certain that Norway could have handled the windfall in much worse ways.

[Elongated Muskrat]

Re: Hmmm "the world's largest such fund,"

Basically, yes. We have unregulated "free market" economics to blame, thanks to Thatcher and Reagan, whereby all the country's public assets have been systematically stripped (at knock-down prices to political funders), privatised, and turned into profit centres. It's why we have the most expensive energy, water, trains, postal service, etc., etc. with the lowest possible level of service, and why, despite the highest level of post-war taxation in history, we are poorer than ever, with the exception of very few incredibly, obscenely, rich individuals, most of whom take their money offshore to avoid taxation.

Somehow, though, people are still easily tricked into blaming the poorest and most vulnerable in society for all their ills, while ignoring the metaphorical (and in some cases literal) lords in their gilded mansions on the hill.

[martinusher]

Re: Hmmm "the world's largest such fund,"

During the 1970s industry was run down and badly needed investment to make it globally competitive. The talk then in political circles was that "North Sea Oil" was going to be a windfall that could be used to revive industry. Then there was the change in government in 1979 which put paid to any of this nonsense. Britain's future was 'service' industries, not 'manufacturing'. So large swathes of our industrial heritage were left to rot (because it wasn't systematic under investment that led to this, it was the fault of the lazy, unionized workforce.......we know this because the Sun, among other news outlets, told us so).

Unfortunately a lot of today's adults grew up after this period. The 70s have been cemented in history as a time of industrial strife which the Glorious 80s fixed -- just like Reagan made it "Morning in America" the Thatcher government were similarly monetarists. The numbers speak for themselves -- people on the whole are worse off than they were 50 years ago (hence you can now get away with selling them snakeoil like MAGA) and governments are mired in debt which severely constrains their ability to do anything.

[Sorry that handle is already taken.]

Re: Hmmm "the world's largest such fund,"

Similar case in Australia. We could have had a sovereign wealth fund to rival Norway's, but the opportunity was pissed away during our resources boom of 20-30 years ago.

It's strange that political "conservatives" never seem to be very interested in conserving anything.

[Fred Daggy]

Re: Hmmm "the world's largest such fund,"

Still could, if governments of any colour had the balls to take on the "Mining magnates".

1 - Windfall royalties on mining companies

2 - Proper taxes / royalties on anything dug up out of the ground

3 - Extra taxes on anything not processed at least some way before leaving on a ship. Extra credits back for each extra stage of processing.

Miners deserve to be rewarded for their effort and risk. But, who owns it when it's in the ground? All of us. However, once that stuff is dug up, it's done. It's a finite resource - miners need to pay ALL OF US to use a resource that can't be replaced.

If the stuff doesn't get dug up ... it's still there when some other country has run out of theirs.

[Charlie Clark]

Re: Hmmm "the world's largest such fund,"

There's a big difference between a sovereign wealth fund and taxing the various sources of income. A sovereign wealth fund is normally, at least intiially, funded from either directly from resource income, or from taxes on such income. The money is then no longer available to the government to spend on pet schemes or fill budget holes, which is invariably what happens with windfall taxes.

[MyffyW]

Re: Hmmm "the world's largest such fund,"

The Thatcher "tax cuts" were also illusory. Yes, the very top rate of tax was cut from 98% to 40%, but the base rate of tax was a more modest change from 33% to 25%. The Major government introduced a very narrow 20% band too.

But VAT increased first to 15% then 17.5% (and has since gone up to 20%). And VAT extended to more of the necessities of life including electricity and gas.

Mortgage income-tax relief at source was scrapped by the Thatcher / Major administrations.

The overall tax take in 1979 when Thatcher came to power was 31.2%. The overall take when the Tories left in 1997? 31.3%

In short our North Sea wealth was squandered on a one-time shift of the UK away from productive to speculative endeavour. Something we have never recovered from.

[VicMortimer]

Turdla Board of Dumb Rectums

"Tesla's board chair Robyn Denholm warned last week that Musk might leave if the proposed stock award - potentially worth up to $1 trillion over 10 years - isn't approved."

The Turdla board of dumb rectums should have fired him already. Having a CEO making Nazi salutes is NOT a good look, particularly when you're an electric car manufacturer and not a Klan bedsheet company.

[Elongated Muskrat]

Re: Turdla Board of Dumb Rectums

The board members of Tesla are cut from the same cloth as Musk. Being around him, they'd long have known about his far right tendencies, and not cared one jot, probably because they all hold the same political views. The 'tler salute was just one more very obvious sign of Musk's political views, but to use a few well-worn adages, judge a man by the company he keeps, and when someone tells you who they are, believe them the first time. You'd have to be delusional to think that Musk's political stance is anything other than that which it obviously appears to be, and equally delusional to think that any of the Tesla board are so naïve as to not know full well what he is.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Turdla Board of Dumb Rectums

"The board members of Tesla are cut from the same cloth as Musk."

They've been handpicked by Elon (can't say "musk" since Kimball is on the board) and it's likely the choice was made partly on how much they owed to Elon for their wealth.

[vtcodger]

On the Other Hand

The Internet tells me, maybe accurately, that the trillion dollars is contingent on Musk meeting exceedingly optimistic performance goals. My GUESS is that even if the deal is approved, the goals are likely impossible to meet. In which case Musk gets nothing -- no salary -- nothing.

Couldn't happen to a more deserving individual.

[herman]

Re: On the Other Hand

You seem to suffer from a severe case of jealousy induced MDS.

[Elongated Muskrat]

Re: On the Other Hand

Hey you, down there, tell us how those boots taste?

It's funny how someone always trots out the "jealousy" thought-terminating cliché. Oddly enough, most people aren't jealous of being given trillions of dollars; most people want enough to live comfortably, not enough to be so obscenely wealthy, that they could solve world hunger, but choose not to, because most people have a thing called a conscience. The thing is, once you have enough money to meet your immediate needs, buy some nice things for yourself, and assure your own comfort for the rest of your life, doing whatever you want to with no impediment, with a reasonable contingency set aside for disasters, money serves no further purpose save for preventing others from having it. Musk already has vastly more wealth than this. It's not jealousy to revile such injustice.

[MachDiamond]

Re: On the Other Hand

"Musk already has vastly more wealth than this. It's not jealousy to revile such injustice."

That may be questionable if you figure in liabilities, but anybody that owns a company that owns Gulfstream jets isn't to bad off. (Falcon Landing, LLC).

The really scary bit will be when people start getting nervous about Tesla's viability going forward. A P/E of over 300 indicates a massive amount of future success. A cash on hand figure that seems to be more money than the company has ever netted according to the accounting they've submitted to the government should also be a red flag. Why would they be fiddling in crypto if they have projects way behind schedule (Semi, Roadster) that might be sped up with more investment? If the bottom falls out, there will be a horde of losers and many of them will be large pension/investment funds. The damage that could be caused would extend beyond shareholders to the market as a whole. It's not EDS to be worried about that sort of thing.

A big downturn in the market would impact my business on several levels. People won't be spending money which leads to companies economizing which leads to be getting less work across all of the things I do. Right now I'm pushing to get my reserves built up before the end of the year in addition to finish buying the parts I need to have to finish up a bunch of solar. The pantry is in good shape so if my energy costs are contained, I could weather quite a lot for a reasonable period of time.

[mirachu]

Re: On the Other Hand

"A P/E of over 300 indicates a massive amount of future success."

No. It indicates the *expectation* of massive future success. That's a huge difference.

[MachDiamond]

Re: On the Other Hand

"No. It indicates the *expectation* of massive future success. That's a huge difference."

Yeah, that's me not proofing what I type before posting.

[blu3b3rry]

Re: On the Other Hand

Its not healthy for your tongue to be that colour.

[Elongated Muskrat]

Re: On the Other Hand

I seem to recall Musk's previous very generous pay packages being equally contingent upon "performance," but somehow him still managing to walk away with his pockets filled. It's almost as if such performance targets can be gamed, especially if the one whose payout depends on them is (or is closely linked to) the one in charge of setting and measuring them. Case in point: Musk's other companies suddenly buying up all those Cybertrucks when nobody wants to drive a skip on wheels that breaks when it goes through a car wash, and which meets so few safety standards it can't be sold in many places outside of the US.

[MachDiamond]

Re: On the Other Hand

"I seem to recall Musk's previous very generous pay packages being equally contingent upon "performance," but somehow him still managing to walk away with his pockets filled."

The myth is he doesn't get a salary. OK, if I stipulate that for the moment, it doesn't mean he isn't being compensated. If I had 4-5 jobs and one of them paid my expenses (home, auto, food, clothes, travel), I would be doing really well on moderate salaries from the others since I'd have no expenses that deducts from that income.

I know people that didn't own a car as the company they worked for provided one for their use. Now how does their salary compare? I would expect that Tesla maintains corporate housing in Austin, Reno, LA, Germany, China, etc so Elon isn't paying to maintain residences in all of those places. They'd be cleaned and provisioned for his use and Tesla can claim that they aren't exclusively for Elon, but any high ranking exec so can fiddle the costs for tax reasons. Prove that wrong. SpaceX can do the same in all of the areas they have facilities and, of course, pay for hotels/AirBnb's elsewhere. Elon seems to often wear company merch apparel.

[trevorde]

Better compensation package

Pay Elon Musk $1T to *leave* Tesla. That would keep everyone happy - shareholders, Elon Musk and Donald Trump.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Better compensation package

"Pay Elon Musk $1T to *leave* Tesla. "

They don't have to pay him to leave. The BoD could just cancel his security pass and take him off of the checking and credit card accounts. Structurally, the way Elon has set up the corporate rules, he could have a case against the board for doing that since he has a veto that would trump that attempt in almost all cases. It would look bad if it went to that point and I expect a judge might be looking really hard to not side with Elon in such a case.

[IGotOut]

The only reason they want to keep Musk...

...is because he's a fantastic snake oil salesmen.

Without Musk's bullshit machine, Tesla have very little to show,and the markets know this. Tesla is just a meme stock with little substance behind it. Musk know this.

Tesla making better cars, becoming more profitable and actually planning to make things that will actually sell is completely irrelevant at this point. Musk could say they are making an atomic powered time machine utilising AI and Quantum computing and the share price would still go up.

[MachDiamond]

Re: The only reason they want to keep Musk...

"Musk could say they are making an atomic powered time machine utilising AI and Quantum computing and the share price would still go up."

Or be on the cusp of introducing a flying car?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Or be on the cusp of introducing a flying car?

Over which the fanbois will salivate/drool yet be totally impractical in real life especially when (apart from the USA where the fix is in) drivers will need a Pilots License and insurance as well as a driving license etc.

The sooner Elongated Muskrat goes on a one-way trip to Mars the better for the world especially if he takes the Trump family with him.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The only reason they want to keep Musk...

If it isn't a Type 40, makes the appropriate noise, and shaped like a Police Box, I 'aint buying one.

[iron]

Musk might leave

Bullshit.

Most of Musk's wealth is in Tesla shares. If Musk leaves Tesla the meme stock will crash making Musk poorer so there is no way he will leave.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Musk might leave

Yup, this is just another crypto style pump n dump scam

[MachDiamond]

Re: Random thought...

"Not a lawyer/banker and all that, but couldn't musk Short his own position in Tesla, ostensibly as insurance to protect value at *today's price*"

No

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Random thought...

I removed my post. On checking, it seems you are quite correct, outside of a board approved transaction, he couldn't act of the entirety of his shares, even if he quits, for in the region of 90 to 180 days, depending on his contract. There are [SEC] legal ways to protect his investment even as a CEO, but his contract either limits or forbids them.

I felt it was best to remove a speculative post that, whilst asked in good faith, could be misleading.

[MyffyW]

Re: Random thought...

Well done @AC... it is this level of intellectual honesty (as well as the toilet humour) that makes me keep commentarding on El Reg

I love you, awesome nerds.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Random thought...

On behalf of ACs everywhere, thank you for your sentiment: even though some of us choose to post anonymously, it's important to try to be right and correct any errors and not spread misinformation.

For the record, I do not hold Mr.Musk in high esteem to say the least... but that's not a reason to engage in or spread conspiracy theories when I have confirmed the facts, hence the removal of the post.

I now wish I had included some toilet humour....

[JamesTGrant]

1trillion USD is 10million x 100,000USD

There are less than 10 million Tesla cars sold globally, ever, combined.

Seems insane to me.

If I was the chairman of a company and someone said to me ‘if you fire this one person, you will save the company 1 trillion dollars’ the rational thing to do would be quite obvious. Or, if you don’t give this person 1 trillion dollars, they might decide to leave, I’d take my chances…

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not about sales, it's about market cap, if they can increase it they can borrow even more money, attract more investment and their shares sky rocket.

If they can't match that cap with actual revenue then it's likely yet another Musk pump n dump scam for the majority shareholders (the board) to rug pull and leave the investors with a handful of turd (some might already consider Tesla to be that turd)

[John Smith 19]

"if they can increase it they can borrow even more money,

attract more investment and their shares sky rocket."

Correct.

IOW it's a Ponzi scheme, like Bernie Madoff's.

Or as the British call them a "Rollover fraud," or "Pyramid" scheme.

The wrinkle is this company actually makes stuff.

[Dwarf]

How much money does one person actually need ?

There is no way anyone is worth that sort of package.

[MachDiamond]

"There is no way anyone is worth that sort of package."

There's no way somebody is worth 1/4 of that package and that could be the real goal. Investors might say yes to the trillion with the expectation that there's no way it will happen as a way to keep Elon around.

[BartyFartsLast]

A thousandth is a billion, nobody is worth or needs even that much money

[Mitoo Bobsworth]

A scam by any other name...

... is still a scam. 'Grant' Musk $1 trillion for his only talent of being the second biggest attention sucking black hole on this planet? F**k off.

[Sorry that handle is already taken.]

"...the carmaker's board says is necessary to retain him..."

What makes retaining the man responsible for the Cybertruck necessary?

[MachDiamond]

Re: "...the carmaker's board says is necessary to retain him..."

"What makes retaining the man responsible for the Cybertruck necessary?"

To get the Cybercab to market in scale that nobody have ever in the entirety of history has ever done before. (Like that's a good thing).

[JulieM]

Re: "...the carmaker's board says is necessary to retain him..."

It's necessary to retain Musk to keep up the illusion that Tesla is worth anything.

[Anonymous Coward]

The boy who cried bullshit

I wouldn’t trust Musk with the keys to the executive washroom.

Get rid of the fascist bum.

[JulieM]

Re: The boy who cried bullshit

Executive washroom?

Musk strikes me more as the type who would go on the floor, then summon a lackey to clean it up.

[Elongated Muskrat]

Re: The boy who cried bullshit

He strikes me as the kind who'd summon a lackey, and then go on them. He's that deranged, as evidenced by his outspoken support for Yaxley-Lennon, the convicted mortgage fraudster and football thug.

[Grumpy Fellow]

The man who predicted the Dot-Com crash has issued dire warnings...

Well, okay, I really didn't see it coming and lost a small fortune, but I do have a Pets.com sock puppet that still talks, and I think that Tesla is a 100% secure investment unless it turns out that the AI boom is really another bubble. On the other hand, when I saw last week that my index stock fund held 10% of its holdings in NVDA, I sold it all and bought tulip bulbs, a more secure investment in the event of another crash.

[spold]

In response...

Musk will buy Norway

[werdsmith]

Re: In response...

Norway will see Musk and raise him $2 trillion.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: In response...

"Musk will buy Norway"

More likely Norwegian fund ousts Musk out from Tesla. He's directly damaging the sales by being a nazi.

[Anonymous Coward]

only in America

stick em up on a pedestal, give them loads of publicity, make they look like the world wouldn't exist without him. Overhyped, Overpaid underachiever, a graduate could do the same as what he's done without all the nonsesense he put out on Twatter/X and getting involved with politics in other parts of the world, which he knows hardly anything about but makes his own conclusions.

[BartyFartsLast]

Special K?

If Musk ODs on ketamine tomorrow Tesla will carry on, it will not end for lack of his presence (but it may well collapse if there's financial dodginess they can't keep hidden any longer)

He's not worth one thousandth of that.

[Larry D]

Robyn Denholm is a woman

Robyn Denholm is a woman

[cyberdemon]

Re: Robyn Denholm is a woman

Is she in some way related to Denholm Reynholm?

[MachDiamond]

Re: Robyn Denholm is a woman

"Robyn Denholm is a woman"

There's a US Supreme Court Justice that wouldn't feel confident saying that.

[StrangerHereMyself]

Perform

Musk needs to increase Tesla's stock valuation to $8.5 trillion if he's to cash-in that cool $1 trillion. Many investors believe that's a fair bargain since the current market cap is about $1.5 trillion so they stand to gain a huge amount if he succeeds.

He'll probably do that by hyping FSD robo-taxis and his home robots, not by selling more electric cars, which will become a commodity in a few years.

[FuzzyTheBear]

Excessive ?

And then some. This is not excess , it's totally abusive. Noone on earth deserves that kind of money. Noone. Let that money go towards employees and go to pay reasonable corporate taxes. Bloody hell . a trillion dollars ? .. fsck that shit. Oppose with all your strength. Noone deserves that kind of money. Noone.

[Groo The Wanderer - A Canuck]

What exactly does that useless sack of shit do except illegally pump stocks?

[Sparkus]

Fixed the first paragraph for you

......which the carmaker's board says retaining him is unnecessary.......

[Anonymous Coward]

In current political climate Trump ass licker and proper Nazi Musk has to be fired from Tesla in order to Tesla sales increase, especially and specifially in Norge, a country that do not like Nazis at all and Musk throwing Nazi-salutations has been noted.

Not in a good way. The Norwegian fund wields a significant percentage of ownership in Tesla, so I wouldn't be surprised that they'd demand that Musk has to be fired: He's personally and literally the sales blocker for Tesla in all EU countries.

Tesla is again #1 in Norway (oh, how fast people forget), but not a clear difference to VW, as earlier.