Musk gets approval for bumper Tesla payout but, unlike his robot, there are strings attached

Tesla is awarding its CEO Elon Musk a package worth a possible $1 trillion, however, it relies in part on a dramatic increase in the value of the electric vehicle manufacturer. The agreement, which has drawn criticism from shareholders, including Norway's sovereign wealth fund, was approved with a vote of more than 75 percent …

[A Non e-mouse]

No one is worth $1trillion.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Worth"? Agreed.

An estimate of the damage -- past, present, and future -- he will cause? Probably on the low side.

[Like a badger]

No, but the payment is in stock, and Tesla's shareholders have voted to give away even more of their company.

Surely it's down to them to be that stupid? In the same way that US voters made an active choice to vote for a rude, bullying, orange stained, rapist, sex pest, tax dodging felon to become their president.

[wolfetone]

You'd start to wonder if money is worth anything at all when people do that.

[Like a badger]

Oh no, it's worth lots to the people who voted to give their company away - their reasoning is that if Elmo is incentivised enough, then they'll make more money from the appreciation of their shares than they lose in the giveaway. It's good old fashioned greed, in the Gordon Gecko mould.

I wonder if they've worked out the impact of how much they lose if Elmo only hits the trivial targets like $2trn market cap? Over ten years that'll be achieved purely through inflation.

[LVPC]

The board has no choice

>> I wonder if they've worked out the impact of how much they lose if Elmo only hits the trivial targets like $2trn market cap? Over ten years that'll be achieved purely through inflation.

They know that Feels autos are now seen as outdated poor quality vehicles, and that sales are one a one-way trend - down. So they have no choice but to keep the hype cycle / grift going or they lose everything. They're going to start slowly divesting while the hype is still working. Once they've got their money, they won't care, same as Musk.

[The man with a spanner]

Re: The board has no choice

If we are optimistic it may be, though personally I doubt it, that Mr Musk may achieve many of the targets but fails to achieve the full enhancement of the share price. Competition isn't going away and that will likely depress profitability.

In that situation the shareholders will have diluted their shareholding without shares growing enough to compensate.

Also Musk is a gambler who likes to go "all in". Sooner or later lady luck will run out.

What happens if he has a medical emergency (prolific drug use is hard on the body)? The gamble the shareholders have taken on Musks rabbit and hat tricks will be up shit creek with no paddle.

There is too much to go wrong and reliance on an unreliable single point of weakness seems a not daft to me.

[Philo T Farnsworth]

As I've noted elsewhere, stocks aren't real money. At best they're notional metrics of instantaneous investor delusion.

My partner and I happen to own some stocks which have substantially appreciated in "value" since they were purchased and, of course, our broker keeps telling us we can't sell them because taxes would eat up most of the profit. In other words, they're nice numbers on a page but not much else -- I couldn't even buy an overprice cup of burned bean water at Starbuck's with them as they stand at the moment.

Elon's situation is far more extreme.

Not only would the taxes kill him, the moment he unloads any substantial quantity of the magic beans, they will signal to the market a deflation in "value" and the price will tumble. Shareholder lawsuits will keep him tied up until he blasts off for Mars.¹

The only thing that's money is money. As Roosta says in The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, "If I can't scratch a window with it, I don't accept it."

______________

¹ A day which I fervently hope will be soon but I suspect will be approximately never, since why would he give up not only the power he holds but the all important opportunity for fawning public attention by his hoardes of acolytes? A trillion dollars of stock will be worth zero dollars in a leaky dome on the surface of Mars.

[Richard 12]

It's collateral

He's able to borrow ludicrous amounts of real cash against the book value of the shares.

He can then borrow more to pay the interest, using other shares as collateral.

That's why he needs more shares.

One likely end game is that one bank calls in a loan, he's forced to sell shares, the value of the rest tanks causing several other banks call in their loans.

Several banks then go bust, entirely due to the actions of one man.

The longer it is before that happens, the greater the exposure and the more banks are at risk. It's pretty worrying.

[MachDiamond]

Re: It's collateral

"The longer it is before that happens, the greater the exposure and the more banks are at risk. It's pretty worrying."

As the stock goes down, more investment fund directors will get suits filed against them for poor management. Any funds with too much exposure won't have the money to pay their beneficiaries the returns they were promising so those people will have less income. The list goes on and the larger the company, the more collateral damage there can be. This is why governments will bail large companies out. There's the direct impact with employees being given the sack, supplier's employees being given the sack and loads of tax revenue from local to national that goes away. A load of machinery goes to auction at blowout prices which means machinery manufacturers won't sell new stuff........

All of the above is not a big issue when a shop on the high street closes. They won't have had that many employees and weren't sending lots of money to the tax collectors. The impact is much smaller if even noticeable. It still doesn't convince me that bailing out the bad decisions of big companies is something that should be done. It's expected these days so nobody prepares/plans for the worst.

[Jellied Eel]

Re: It's collateral damage

One likely end game is that one bank calls in a loan, he's forced to sell shares, the value of the rest tanks causing several other banks call in their loans.

Ah, the good'ol margin call-

Tesla is awarding its CEO Elon Musk a package worth a possible $1 trillion, however, it relies in part on a dramatic increase in the value of the electric vehicle manufacturer.

So there's a perverse incentive for Musk to inflate the value of Tesla by any means necessary, both to hit the new targets and prevent margin calls. Want the 10m FSD goal met? Simples, just drop the price to $1. But basically encouraging and incentivising the same kind of gambling that Bernie Ebbers did with WorldCom.

[MachDiamond]

"Not only would the taxes kill him, the moment he unloads any substantial quantity of the magic beans, they will signal to the market a deflation in "value" and the price will tumble."

One would think that, but unloading a bunch to buy Twitter didn't have that much of an impact.

[Philo T Farnsworth]

Actually, most of the money came from a consortium of banks.

On April 20, Musk disclosed that he had secured financing provided by a group of banks led by Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Barclays, MUFG, Société Générale, Mizuho Bank, and BNP Paribas, for a potential tender offer to acquire the company. The funding included $7 billion of senior secured bank loans; $6 billion in subordinated debt; $6.25 billion in bank loans to Musk personally, secured by $62.5 billion of his Tesla stock; $20 billion in cash equity from Musk, to be provided by sales of Tesla stock and other assets; and $7.1 billion in equity from 19 independent investors.¹

I've been unable fo find exactly how much stock he sold but, according to the Washington Post,

"Beyond the bank loans, it’s unclear how Musk intends to pay for more than $21 billion of the deal which he described as “equity financing” from himself. He could borrow against or sell shares of his Tesla stock, though that path would raise risks for the share price of the electric carmaker.

“If Elon Musk were forced to sell shares of our common stock that he has pledged to secure certain personal loan obligations, such sales could cause our stock price to decline,” Tesla warned in its annual filing.²

In toto, according to the Associated Press, he only sold $3.95 billion of Tesla³ (only. . . sigh), though the Financial Times reports $8.5 billion⁴, so your guess is as good as mine regarding the actual number.

According to The Hitchhiker's Wiki, "Numbers written on restaurant checks within the confines of restaurants do not follow the same mathematical laws as numbers written on any other pieces of paper in any other parts of the universe."⁵ It would seem doubly so for financial transactions and perhaps trebly so for any transactions involving Elon Musk.

__________________

¹ Wikipedia: Acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk, Takeover Bid

² Washington PostL Elon Musk acquires Twitter for roughly $44 billion (archive)

³ Associated Press: Elon Musk sells $3.95 billion worth of Tesla stock

⁴ Financial Times: Elon Musk sold $8.5bn in Tesla stock after agreeing $44bn Twitter deal

⁵ The Hitchhiker's Wiki: Bistromathics

[Kurgan]

But everyone involved in the current fairy-tales based "economy" must believe in it. If at any point in time someone acknowledges the fact that the king is naked, then the whole world collapses instantly. Our economy lives on only because everyone still firmly believes it can and will work fine even if it's based on NOTHING AT ALL.

This is why no stakeholder actually said "WTF???" and everyone went on with this idiocy... because otherwise they'd instantly lose 99% of the money they invested; so better keep faking it until it will eventually crash, but not now, not yet.

Just like the AI bubble.

[Like a badger]

"This is why no stakeholder actually said "WTF???" and everyone went on with this idiocy... because otherwise they'd instantly lose 99% of the money they invested"

If any stock owner wants out, they currently can do so, and lose virtually nothing, and probably bank a fat gain. The problem comes when somebody in the theatre shouts "Fire!" and everybody scrambles for the exit, and then valuing companies at their marginal price is shown up as a rather unhelpful concept.

The people who are worst positioned (apart from fanbois private investors) are those with money in index tracker funds, because those funds HAVE to hold specific companies and specific weightings based on the current index. When the reset happens, the trackers will be hit hard, both through declining value of the assets they keep and taking a massive hit through being forced to sell some stock whether they like it or not. And with the likes of Nvidia valued at an unfeasible $5trn, trackers will have huge exposure in one company, plus the whole FAANG + Microsoft, Broadcom, Tesla and Oracle disaster in waiting as well.

Anybody who has the choice and currently has money in tracker funds might want to take a deep breath, and ask themselves whether the prospect of losing 50% of their current tracker investment worth is sufficient to make them forgo any further last-gasp appreciation in prices.

[Roland6]

Interesting take on the vote here:

Tesla (TSLA) shareholders shoot selves in foot, approve Musk $1 trillion payday

I seem to remember from the last time that some shareholders votes were worth more than others, hence achieving a majority only really required a handful of key people.

[MachDiamond]

"I seem to remember from the last time that some shareholders votes were worth more than others, hence achieving a majority only really required a handful of key people."

In some corporations that's true, but not with Tesla. It was set up with one class of stock and changing now would be impossible. Elon has been trying to find a way to regain a 25% voting strength once again after selling close to half his holdings to buy Twitter and the only way that could happen was to be awarded more stock. That personal 25% plus proxies he might hold plus the fan base equal enough that he's highly unlikely to lose any vote that he cares about. If he could have had shares that were more equal than everybody else's, he would have done that.

[Arthur the cat]

This is why no stakeholder actually said "WTF???" and everyone went on with this idiocy.

Quite a few stockholders did say "WTF?" and "No Way!" as well, the Norwegian Sovereign Fund being one, but in total they amounted to only 25% of the stock holding.

[Anonymous Coward]

Several investors (including Norway) said "WTF???" and disagreed.

Could as easily say the modern economy is based on everything (production, assets, labor, trust). Those aren't nothing, they're just abstract.

[SundogUK]

You are worth exactly what someone is willing to pay you.

[BartyFartsLast]

I wish that were true, but the number of incompetents who are employed and then do not live up to the salary disproves it.

[Anonymous Coward]

He's not being paid $1Tn in cash

He's getting stock. And to get that stock he has to get Tesla's market value up to at least $8.5Tn, so what he's receiving is at most about 11-12% more ownership of Tesla. That'd take him up to 27% ownership.

Not only does he need to get a 6x increase in the company value and doubles this years' sales every year within a decade, he also needs to sell a million expensive robots of questionable practicality, AND does all this from a point of view of Tesla being seen as expensive, poor quality, and having lied about the FSD capabilities, AND makes the personal changes required to make himself not a huge anchor on the company...

What company wouldn't swap 11% of itself for someone who could provide that sort of growth? Not just growth, but a turnaround of the company.

[Anonymous Coward]

A near-insurmountable challenge

Like a steep hill to a Cybertruck?

[Flocke Kroes]

Re: Like a steep hill to a Cybertruck?

Not a problem. The biggest customer appears to be SpaceX and Boca Chica is flat. Parking should not be a problem as Starbase is set up to scrap stainless steel on an industrial scale. I am not sure how xAI will manage.

[Ochib]

Tesla have sold about 8.5 million vehicles. Of which 2 million have Version 12 of Tesla’s FSD. So there is a big hill to climb

[Like a badger]

I believe the metric is FSD subscriptions, and that's around 1m? But presumably every new car will have the untruthfully named FSD capability built in but not enabled, and the trick will be in shepherding buyers into also ponying up for the FSD to be switched on.

[MachDiamond]

"Tesla have sold about 8.5 million vehicles."

It's another "Yes, but" situation. The majority of total sales have been made in the last several years so if they increase sales only modestly each year, Hitting the car sales mark isn't a huge bar. Getting the market cap up to $8.5tn is hard core pumping. The downfall might be robotaxis and robots. The robotaxi leader, Waymo, isn't making money so another 2-4 people in the market are only going to dilute the fares. Tesla still has a long way to go and the Cybercab is not a very good design for a taxi. Aerodynamics for city traffic is useless so low profile designs simply block access to people with mobility issues, prams, carts, bikes, etc. I'm not in a wheelchair, but the creaking gets worse every day as I get older and folding myself up to get into a small car is not comfortable. To me, the London Black Cab is the current pinnacle of design for an urban taxi.

[juice]

> folding myself up to get into a small car is not comfortable

Usually, by dint of being about 6'2, I get to call shotgun when travelling in a taxi, but I've recently been travelling with a friend who's 6'4, and therefore gets dibs.

Unfortunately, while I appreciate that taxi drivers like the Toyota Corolla for it's reliability and general capacity, in the current model the height of the rear doors seems to have been slightly lowered. I've therefore been consistently bashing my head against the frame when getting in and out of the car!

[theOtherJT]

This is a cult.

There's no other explanation for this. There is nothing about the company finances that make any of this even slightly realistic. People just keep throwing money at it because other people are throwing money at it there's no realistic return on investment here. Just like AI this is a bubble that has to burst and god help anyone who's heavily invested when it does.

[BartyFartsLast]

Re: This is a cult.

Did you mean to type L and not N?

[MachDiamond]

Re: This is a cult.

"Just like AI this is a bubble that has to burst and god help anyone who's heavily invested when it does."

And, there was the vote to allow Tesla to throw money at xAI.

[alain williams]

Tax it at 95%

That will still leave him with $50 billion - more than enough for anyone.

Use the tax for: food aid, Medicaid, overseas aid.

That will never happen, but it is nice to dream.

[codejunky]

Re: Tax it at 95%

@alain williams

"That will still leave him with $50 billion - more than enough for anyone."

Why the green eyed desire for theft? You probably earn more money than a vast portion of the world, would you like the idea of them stealing from you?

Worse than that you want it to be taxed, which means going to the government. The very people who cant even agree to keep the US government funded, cant budget and spend vastly more than they make. If that is your dream I call it nightmare.

[nematoad]

You choose.

Musk, accompanied by a dancing Optimus robot,

How could the audience tell the difference?

One is non-human and only works on pre-programmed inputs.

The other is a human simulacrum and cannot apprehend reality.

So, which was which?

[Omnipresent]

The worlds most powerful

You are talking about the world's most powerful people. They own and control the world's economies, and can find you and know you in intimate ways. The shareholders simply want more money. As long as money continues to be unreasonably thrown at them, the shareholders will not disrupt it.

Muskox will throw money at his komrades and kompromats alike in turn, they will continue to throw money at his shareholders.

It does irrationally piss me off when I see someone driving a telsa though.

[WillbeIT]

Re: The worlds most powerful

Try driving one, it may help.

[elaar]

Re: The worlds most powerful

What if someone you know sees you though?

[GlenP]

"I think there could be tens of billions of Optimus robots out there."

So in excess of two for every single person on the planet! At the estimated eventual price of $20,000 each I reckon the total cost would be over 4 times the current global GDP.

Yet I'm sure some people actually believe what is said.

[MachDiamond]

"So in excess of two for every single person on the planet! At the estimated eventual price of $20,000 each I reckon the total cost would be over 4 times the current global GDP."

Elon has let slip that the first ones might be closer to $100,000ea with the price improving with production efficiencies. That's a healthy down payment on a 1/2 million dollar home for just one.

The problem with humanoid robots as a consumer product is there's no current market. If there were, there would be customer feedback on specs, improvements, usefulness, etc. There would also be some data on sales. What still hasn't been shown is any advantage to the form for industrial use. It would be far easier for a company to justify the purchase if there were a demonstrable ROI. Using one hand to move battery cell replicas from one tray to another is silly. There's already industrial machines that take freshly made t-shirts, fold them and stick them into plastic bags with no need to have moveable legs under the machinery. AI is still a curiosity. There's applications for certain things, but nowhere near the hype being peddled. Illustrators that make concept drawings for new buildings might find themselves in trouble, but an architectural photographer will still be hired to make photos of the finished building and only use AI as a tool for certain edits. Somebody photographing homes for an estate agent won't lose work as there's a requirement in most places to show actual images that aren't materially changed (no problem editing out the trash can left out next door).

[Not Yb]

Android-style robots can look good on video, but having two legs just makes the solution have to add "balance the robot" to even the simplest task.

[Nematode]

I always come back to considering that if you have made a billion (which to make it clear is a million, then another million, and so on A THOUSAND TIMES (a U.S. billion)), under what circumstances would you need to make another thousandfold million and then another and another etc etc ad nauseam (and it is nauseous)? You can't possibly spend it, unless you start a rocket ship company when it's not really yours, is it, especially if you finance it with share values.)

If these guys were serious philanthropists then I might not be so against them, but they just hoard more and more, in shares and investments, in some sort of pi55ing contest.

One of these guys' wealth pots could do a lot to fixing the absolute 5h1thole which most of the world has become. Instead they are just amplifying the en5h1ttification of the world.

[BartyFartsLast]

This timeline

This timeline is truly the most stupid.

[elsergiovolador]

Re: This timeline

We are getting there, but some examples from the past:

Ancient Rome: Lead-sweetened wine and plumbing poisoned the elite for centuries.

Qin Dynasty China: The first emperor sought immortality by drinking mercury and promptly died.

Medieval Europe: Doctors drained patients’ blood to “balance the humours.”

Plague Era: People carried dead toads to absorb “miasma.”

19th Century: Doctors refused to wash hands between autopsies and childbirth, killing thousands.

Late 19th / Early 20th Century - Heroin Cough Syrup: Bayer sold heroin as a “non-addictive” treatment for children’s colds.

Victorian Era - Arsenic Wallpaper: Fashionable green pigment slowly poisoned families in their parlours.

1920s - Radioactive Tonics: Radium-laced “health drinks” melted the bones of wealthy enthusiasts.

1930s–1950s - Doctors Prescribing Cigarettes: Medical endorsements turned lung cancer into a lifestyle.

Mid-20th Century - The Lobotomy Nobel Prize: A man won the Nobel for mutilating brains with an ice pick.

[BartyFartsLast]

Re: This timeline

All on the same timeline

[Eric 9001]

Re: This timeline

Sure heroin was non-addictive when a small dose as a cough suppressant was administered once or twice despite the harm.

But boy it was addictive when it was used to mask the symptoms of tuberculosis (I guess some would keep going back for a bigger and bigger dose as the cough from the untreated tuberculosis would keep coming back).

[Rivalroger]

When I read about these insane pay packages

Yes, I know it isn't really a pay packet but ...

I am reminded of an immortal line in a Walter Matthau film - Hopscotch.

Two incomparables - Walter Matthau as Miles Kendig and Herbert Lom as Russian superspy Yaskov meet.

Yaskov offers to run Kendig as a spy. Kendig replies that "money is too expensive to earn that way". Musky pusky, Zuck et al would do well to consider that.

Oh yes. I fully think that he is reading this and will downvote it as ever when I speak disrespectfully of him. Feels good in a way.

[The man with a spanner]

Re: When I read about these insane pay packages

If it is a pay packet how big would the paypacket be?

I guess that the unit of measure should be the Cyber Truck.

[seven of five]

Re: When I read about these insane pay packages

Great movie, btw.

[elsergiovolador]

1 trillion question

Will 1 trillion be enough to recover kompromats from Moscow?

Seems like Elon desperately wants to be free.

Such paradox, the richest man and yet on a Putin's leash.

[Brad Ackerman]

Re: 1 trillion question

Kompromat is irrelevant. He's a documented sex pest and statutorily ineligible for a US security clearance based on actions he took on the 2019 Joe Rogan show. A government that wants to either screw with him or follow the law can do so and make his life (more) miserable. There's no information Putin could have that would make a difference.

Xi's got something better — direct control over his substantial China-derived business revenue. That's also something that should make Musk, along with half of Trump's current cabinet, ineligible for a security clearance per SEAD 4; but that's technically a judgment call by the government, whereas Congress removed any executive branch discretion from clearance decisions for people who use illegal drugs while in access. It's legal, if incredibly stupid, for an agency head to issue a SEAD 4 waiver and grant someone access despite extensive financial ties to adversarial governments. Or indeed for most things, including violent felonies that have nothing to do with drug possession. But smoke some weed? The law says no.

[BartyFartsLast]

Re: 1 trillion question

I do wonder if South Africa would take asylum seekers from the US

[Roland6]

Re: 1 trillion question

>” Xi's got something better — direct control over his substantial China-derived business revenue.”

Xi, with the control the US handed China, over the supply and refinement of rare earths, effectively controls whether Tesla can or can’t produce anything…

[Mitoo Bobsworth]

The joke isn't funny any more

It's gone from sublime to ridiculous to downright f***ing idiotic. Icarus was a pragmatist compared to these people.

[goblinski]

The amount of clickety-clicks needed to short Tesla stock is orders of magnitude lower than the one needed to explain to Tesla stock owners how dumb they are.

[MachDiamond]

"The amount of clickety-clicks needed to short Tesla stock is orders of magnitude lower than the one needed to explain to Tesla stock owners how dumb they are."

If Tesla traded on objective fundamentals, you could make a good living on shorts. That it doesn't makes it a very risky tactic.

[Kevin McMurtrie]

Musk and long-term goals?

Musk will quit, say it was rigged, say everyone at Tesla is incompetent, and sue for his un-earned money.

[Omnipresent]

Re: Musk and long-term goals?

He and everyone else at this point is going to be prosecuted when this is over. Jack Smith is taking names.

[MachDiamond]

Halfway is good enough

The conspiricist in me thinks that Elon designed the bonus package to be outrageous at the final tier so people would vote for it no believing it could be accomplished. If it was, their stock would shoot up quite a lot. After having a judge toss out his $55bn stock bonus for not being up front about the terms & conditions, this round has everybody focusing on only one set of T&C's and can be completely honest about the lower tiers which will be richer than the previous quashed enrichment. I haven't seen a graphic nor taken apart the deal into the metrics of each tranche (it's not easy to find in a concise statement), but I wouldn't be surprised if the first few goals are nearly automatic and that Elon would get to the $100bn level rather quickly with things that are already in the works. The Roadster is now said to be coming out in a couple of years. A bit late for a car that Tesla was "making now" in 2017. There's loads of electric semi models out now with high capacity charging being deployed all over Europe, UK and the Middle East. The Electric Trucker's vlogs are very informing. Until tariffs start coming down, the US isn't going to have the breadth of choices that there is elsewhere. There's also a load of underinformed YouTuber "news" channels that still believe that Tesla is the leader in electric trucks (without a shipping product). I've also noticed that Frito-Lay/Pepsi have prototypes that are different from the models Tesla had been showing. I have to wonder if they are still tinkering with the design. Still needs a proper front bumper.

[Roland6]

Re: Halfway is good enough

You are overlooking Tesla’s interest in running charging networks and energy trading companies (in the UK for example). These seem like nice subscription style services; as Apple have demonstrated it is trivial to have your device not charge if the charger isn’t one of your’s, having achieved this owners will have the privilege of topping up with premium Telsa electricity, rather than regular electricity…

[MachDiamond]

Re: Halfway is good enough

"having achieved this owners will have the privilege of topping up with premium Telsa electricity, rather than regular electricity…"

Some consumer device manufacturers are getting away with proprietary chargers, but it's not being allowed for cars. In Scandinavia, Tesla had to use CCS for their cars/chargers and be compatible with every other maker. In the US, politicians made it a requirement to receive subsidies that chargers were open to the public and any car which is why Tesla started opening up their network. Elon is big on free government money and didn't want to be locked out. They still aren't 100% open to other brands and many of their chargers are 400v architecture so as slow as winter molasses or incompatible with 800v architecture EV's. The new SAE J3400 standard for the US features the no longer proprietary Tesla plug and CCS communications.

Tesla needs to prioritize their charging network and look to make improvements (not size of locations). Walmart had been partnered with Electrify America, but EA has been dropping the ball on repairs and uptime so WallyWorld is doing it for themselves starting with store locations that don't have charging. It's a separately run division with no hard cap on budget. The chargers are 400kW and the only problem some reviewers are having is that in states that don't require there being a payment terminal at the charger, the app is a nightmare on Ketamine. I'd still like to see there being a cash option for chargers that are hosted at retail locations. If a network is down, one could go to the cashier and get $20 of charging on #2 and be able to go on their way. Anybody that's had a credit card get locked out knows it's hard to rely on them. It happened when I helped a friend move about 1,100 miles. He called the card company to let them know about the trip and to expect some heavy fuel purchases. They said all was good, which turned out to be a flat out lie when they stopped charges going through about halfway along. Fortunately, he had two more cards as backups and in extremis, I could have put a few tanks full on my card and let him pay me back when we got to his new house. It would have been less frustrating to have estimated the fuel cost and got that in cash from the bank. it would have been cheaper as well.

[Groo The Wanderer - A Canuck]

Seeing as they're more interested in kissing the Muscoid's arse than paying shareholders, I'd be dumping my stock REAL QUICK if I had any...

[Dwarf]

Customers

Growth is down to what customers decide to buy and what they don't and that will be decisive

So, you know what you have to do.

If you like the saluting one, then buy a thing from one of his businesses.

If you don't like the saluting one, then don't buy a thing from one of his business.

[Winkypop]

What a giant load of horse hooey

Insanity all the way down.

[Steve Davies 3]

How much of the Tesla sale price

is going straight into his pockets?

Like his master, Donald Trump, Musk is a born grifter. It is all they know.

Stop spending any money on products that Musk has a financial interest in. One day, Tesla (and the rest) will get the message that he is a liability. Sadly, I think TSLA will be too far gone before his cronies on the BOD give in and kick him out.

[xyz123]

Optimus has already begun to show musk-levels of self awareness.

It ignores any child functions programmed into it......

[Anonymous Coward]

Tesla is rather good camouflage, though

The whole 'green' EV thing is perfect camouflage for the fact that he is burning fossil fuel at an shocking rate at SpaceX.

I'm not bored enough to sit down and work out just how many regular cars could run on the equivalent energy of what he burns per launch (no, I said 'equivalent', I know cars don't quite use the same fuel but it's still fossil derived), but I think it's enough to offset whatever green credits he gets from Tesla, by an astronomical (sorry) margin.

Oh, sod it, I'll have a brief stab at it. In this I assume the energy released per liter is the same as regular petrol (which is definitely wrong, but I leave it as a further exercise to work out a multiplier for that). I'll also leave it in bananas (to quote CEE Engineering in Oz), not in metric.

Falcon 9 RP1 fuel per launch: 39600 gallons. Mpg of a Ford F150 in 2025: 18.4 (so yes, I'm taking average US Jo here). Fuel tank capcity: approx 30 gallons. So that's 728.640 uneconomically driven miles, or 1320 full tanks (assuming they go completely empty which no driver ever allows). That's per launch.

Number of Starlink launches to date: 550. I don't think the amount of Tesla's produced yet (7.9 million) come close to offset that. And we're not even discussing actual energy and actual CO₂ release yet.

I welcome more clever/awake people to have a play with those numbers, I've had a long day and not enough coffee..

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the minimum?

I'd have liked a bit more focus not only on the highest number, but also on the lowest. Is he going to be poor if he doesn't hit any of those milestones? Reuters says no, he's still going to be paid impossible-to-understand amounts of money.

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