Why Elon Musk won't ever realize the shareholder-approved Tesla payout At Tesla's annual shareholder meeting in Austin, Texas, more than 75 percent of voting shares backed a compensation deal for CEO Elon Musk that would make him history's first trillionaire. I've read that his record-shattering deal had the stockholders up on their feet dancing, chanting his name, and applauding. To make Musk a …
"I've read that his record-shattering deal had the stockholders up on their feet dancing, chanting his name, and applauding"
We have a term for groups which exhibit such behaviour at meetings - a cult.
And an almost identically spelt word for people who think they are worth that much.... :)
"And an almost identically spelt word for people who think they are worth that much.... :)"
With this name calling, you do realize that you insult half of humanity. That half cannot be held responsible for the behavior of a creature that is not a member and has nothing but contempt for them.
"same faux angst about anyone being called a knob"
It shows that you consider the part in question as an evil thing, worthy of ridicule and hate. As they have done and still do with those humans who possess one.
Muskiday obviously shares this opinion as does the Mad Orange Hatter.
The fantasy is the current belief by shareholders that Tesla is worth more than nearly the entire rest of the auto industry put together world wide despite being only a minor player in terms of sales. Yet that's what their current market capitalization implies.
There are only so many people in the world who can afford to buy cars. Tesla would have to have a near monopoly on world wide auto sales to justify their current stock price, and that is never going to happen.
A more realistic long term value for Tesla's shares would be for them to decline drastically.
There was a time when Musk might in theory have been able to do it. But not after he went full Nazi while pushing a product that appeals more to liberals, and at the same time linking himself inextricably with the one person on Earth of whom you can say simply "Is he dead yet?" and nobody needs to ask who you're talking about.
All those are fair criticisms, but if he were a paragon of liberal values who's best friends were Mr Rogers and David Attenborough he still couldn't do this. The saturation point for EV's - never mind Teslas - just doesn't make those numbers realistic. People just don't have that much to spend on cars total right now. That's before we get anywhere near the "Million robots" thing or the "Fully autonomous driving" thing, neither of which are going to happen inside the requisite timescale from a technological standpoint alone.
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"Do please elucidate the difference between conservative and liberal electricity"
The difference is electron spin. Conservative electricity uses electrons with a right hand side spin, liberal electrons have a left hand side spin.
It's an important difference. Spin is a crucial element of politics.
Easy!
Conservative electricity is very good, because billionaires make money by gouging it out of the ground and polluting the air to produce it, then investing it into winning the AI Arms Race.
Liberal electricity is very bad, because it's cheap to produce, often made from renewable energy sources, and provides affordable heat and lighting to the citizenry.
Conservative electricity is created by burning naturally found resources in gorgeously stunning buildings with faint whiffs of fairy smoke coming out of idyllic chimneys, that can only enhance the landscape and air, whereas evil liberal electricity is made from looming towers of hateful wind turbines. It also upsets the natural order of things. If the environment that the poor have to live in is just as clean as the kindly and benevolent capitalist's, then they are likely to live just as long, if not longer, and I'll be damned if my wealth is not going to eke out a few more years over the proles that I have nothing but derision for.
...there is hyperinflation. It happened before in many countries and unconventional economic policies of popular leaders more then once were the cause to hyperinflation. I don't say there will be hyperinflation, but if there were then he'd easy gain his bonus for doing nothing more then a bit of creative goal chassing. And no, hyperinflation wouldn't make his trillion dollar package worthless. The package is expressed in percentage of total Tesla shares, not in dollar amount. Share prices skyrocket also during hyperinflation.
With hyperinflation, all monetairy numbers to be obtained are trivial. Just making *any* profit at all over 10 years time then is the actual challenge.
The other 'hurdles'?
* Deliver 20 million vehicles? Rebrand cheap Chinese ones and sell as Tesla at very low margin.
* Sell a million "Optimus" humanoid robots? I read an in dept analysis that the actual requirements don't even require "humanoid". So even toys would do. Or humanoid 500 dollar a piece toys.
* Roll out at least a million commercially operational self-driving robotaxi units? Roll out a (Uber style) service called self-driving robotaxis that is nothing but a rebrand on existing Tesla's held by private owners open for almost fsd taxi service.
* Last but not least, Tesla must have 10 million Full Self-Driving (FSD) subscribers. Offer it for 10 dollar a year or as a requirement to get seat heating. Some Chinese brands already offer it for free.
=> In case of hyperinflation, a big if, things can be very easy obtained by cheating (without breaking the letter of the deal nor the law) towards the goal.
Either way, the targets to obtain "only" tens of billions of rewards are very light too. It's not an all or nothing bonus.
As said, Elon is not awarded a 1 Trillion dollar package. He is awarded a large percentage of stock as a reward if he meets the goals.
Calling it a "Trillion dollar package" is sloppy journalism that so many news outlets do, because it makes for better and far more spectacular headlines then saying "x percent of Tesla shares" (roughly 12% by what I found so far). Remember that the bulk of CEO bonus rewards are (underlying) expressed in shares, not in actual dollars.
So with hyperinflation, the value of the package still remains roughly 12% of total Tesla shares. So the total value then would be (dollar value per share adjusted for hyperinflation) * (total amount of shares awarded). The full award hence would be roughly 12% of whatever Tesla as a company is valuated on the stock market then. If it isn't bankrupt by then, that'll be far more then a set of steak knives.
To go even further, if he reached the goal he could even further increase the value of his package by doing share buybacks. Then even with obtaining far less goals he could obtain a large percentage of Tesla.
Example:
By what I found he now has 13% and could obtain 12% more of Tesla if he reached all goals. Now if his award is expressed in percentage of *current* shares, reaching only the goal needed for obtaining an award of 6% and having Tesla itself (not Elon) buy back half of its outstanding shares would still be equivallent to obtaining a 12% bonus today
ANd even after all that, it's still just "on paper". If he tried to cash out and take the money, the share price would plummet. And IIRC there are rules about how much a major shareholder can sell in one transaction, and, I think, have to give notice they are planning said sale, which would depress the price even before the sale could happen.
Musk was supposed to give notice when he started buying a significant percentage of Twitter. His SEC filing was late but they barely did anything last time. It would be amazing if there is anything functional left of the SEC ten years from now. Someone will notice and post something on X that gets shared with zero other people.
True, if his plan is to sell the shares for cash, he won't get anything close, though he can do that eventually and he would get a lot more than he should. However, that's not what he is going to do. Not only can he borrow against those shares and get a lot more, but the major value of them is that they let him control the actions of the company where he can extract money from it. For example, voting to have Tesla buy AI services from his AI company, services which aren't explicitly defined but a price tag that is. He can take that payment from the AI company which is privately owned.
"Not only can he borrow against those shares"
He does some of that but creditors will only accept stock shares at a discount. I expect Tesla shares are heavily discounted as a security. Loans have interest, so TANSTAAFL. Elon has borrowed against his shares, but needs to come up with money from somewhere to pay at the least the interest.
Voting control is huge and being able to push Tesla at buying something from xAI and ads on Xitter is a way to direct money from Tesla to his other companies and into his pocket. So he doesn't draw an official salary from Tesla, big deal. Tesla covers a load of his expenses so what he makes from other ventures doesn't get eaten up by car payments, a mortgage, travel costs, etc.
I heard the thing about him getting more shares, and perhaps that's what he wants most... and maybe the $1 Trillion is just a side-show~? I always thought it odd that he hadn't sold the company to someone with deep pockets before this... they've presumably got some IP related to EV manufacture, and the charging network could be sold separately, or he might keep hold of that? But if he's got more shares then perhaps (1). he's got more control and might be better able to get the sale approved? and (2). I guess he'd gain more if/when the company (car manufacturer + maybe charge network) are sold?
But... I still feel he should've done this a few years ago when the company was still in it's accent! Right now, Musk's own brand is kind of toxic, the EV side of things has far far more competition, and significantly, where Tesla used to benefit from carbon-credits from non-EV manufacturers, this is decreasing; AFAIK, Tesla used to make a crazy amount of money from legacy manufacturers who had little or no EV products of their own.
^ that latter part might also be why Musk is so annoyed with Trump since it's not _just_ that Tesla EVs don't get a subsidy, but also that if there's no carbon-credits (or whatever the US equivalent was), then he won't be getting "free" money from non-EV car sales.
"they've presumably got some IP related to EV manufacture"
If Sandy decides to protect his buddy and not sell the Tesla data they've derived.
I'm not aware of anything particularly earth shattering from Tesla that would be worth stacks of money. Lucid has some very good innovations to eek out more efficiency from their drivetrains. GM going to Silicon Carbide power semis is not just boosting efficiency, but doing it over a wide range power band which is a bigger boost than the few percent would seem to suggest. EV tech is advancing rapidly and electric motor control has been a thing for over a century now so there's more than one way to roast those scuttling crabs.
* Roll out at least a million commercially operational self-driving robotaxi units? Another option to obtain this goal is to buy a successfull Asian / worldwide "robotaxi Uber" with over a million active robottaxis and rebrand them Tesla's by paying a license fee to the producer of the cars too.
Speaking of the profit and market cap goals: there are other options too. Just try and merge Tesla with a successfull and profitable Asain / worldwide "robotaxi Uber" and call the new company Tesla too. The profit and market cap near automatically go up. Nobody mentioned it couldn't be for a merged company with double or tripple the amount of shareholders didn't it?
If I can find all these option so quickly, Elon can too. It seems the shareholders were caught sleepwalking.
"* Roll out at least a million commercially operational self-driving robotaxi units?
According the googles AI 1st result, "as of 2024, the United States had approximately 393,400[*] taxi, shuttle, and chauffeur drivers". So a three-fold increase in the number of available taxis, not including the likes of Uber, Lyft etc competing in the same market, but add in the 10 million FSD sales to people who will never need a taxi again, and it certainly all looks a bit pie in the sky.
* That number does seem a little low for a country the size of the USA, but hey, AI says it's so so it must be true.
It's a massively delusional cult, there's no other explanation for that. And I saw it, they played a clip on the news that night.
Meanwhile, everybody who buys Tesla might care to remember that this money isn't going to come out of thin air. I wonder how much of the price goes to shareholders, to Musk...
The human body has roughly 30 trillion cells (puzzlingly males slightly more, females slightly less) so USD1.0 trillion is a little more than 3 cents for each of Space Karen's cells. Obvious jokes about girlfriends, blood and other banks... not affording his services.
The brain has about 100 billion cells so for our trillionaire, USD 10.00 per brain cell increasing with Special-K (ab)usage.
Worth printing $1,000,000,000 in greenbacks, to take with him, as a reward for his personally reaching Mars in the next three years. (And staying there.)
Although in recent pictures he is looking decidely "later middle aged" and likely starting to discernl the reaper in background although in his case it might be the rat† that does the honours. So he might not actually be around for the payout.
† who presumably squeaks in SMALL CAPS.
"If (gigantic if) someone can raise the value of my shares by a factor of 5, I'd happily let them have 20% of the profit. "
Fine, fine, all fine. But, you mention "profit". The lifetime net profit of Tesla is under or around $40bn. Elon has already cashed out more than that in stock which tells you the stock price and the real world value of the company are highly disconnected. The terms of the deal also talk about EBITDA which is roughly double NET. I'm sure there's places where EBITDA is a useful figure to have, but I got my degrees in engineering and not economics (I did just dl the MIT course on MicroEconomics so maybe that will help me if I take the time to learn).
This might have been true back in the days where Standard Oil and Bell were broken up, but nowadays regulatory capture is a well versed skill along with social media hype trains and "pivots" to new sectors.
Sadly it's not going to come crashing to a halt and if it does then those at the top will walk away with more money than ever and just start over elsewhere....
Muskiday can securitize this chance of getting $1T in Tesla stock options. That is, he can borrow money on this securitized stock option promise or he can sell it.
Who is willing to bet a few billion dollars on this gamble?
This is valuable as there are suckers born every minute.
"Muskiday can securitize this chance of getting $1T in Tesla stock options. That is, he can borrow money on this securitized stock option promise or he can sell it."
There's supposed to be an embargo on Elon selling this new tranche of stock for 5 years. That's a long way into the future for a bank to accept as security to feel comfortable. There's also the issue of when those milestones will be achieved and the stock/options awarded. If another court rescinds the deal again, that could be sticky.
Stock as security is acceptable up to a point. Tesla's stock price is extremely high compared to their capital assets and high probability income. If the next US President eases tariffs and import restrictions on Chinese EV's, Tesla is in real trouble. Ford and GM as well. Tesla's charging network is a unit they should be focusing more on solidifying. It can show a solid, predictable income that makes creditors happy to see. Since it's required that people have an account with Tesla to use the Superchargers, I'm guessing they are also bringing in income by selling PII as well. I'd be amazed if their user account agreement didn't have provisions that allow them to "share" information with their "partners". I expect they all do that which is why there's no paying with cash. With Tesla, since their dispensers don't have any sort of interface, there's a requirement to be signed up with them and agreeing to their terms.
Banks will accept stock as security at a discount that varies with company stability and there are calls in place if the stock drops below a certain point.
I wasn't clear, I see.
The idea is like mortgage securitization as used before the 2008 financial meltdown. There are undoubtedly laws against any of what I think, but there are also highly paid lawyers and accountants who know how to get around these laws.
Muskiday sets up an entity that will receive the bonus stocks when they can be sold, and this "promise" is put on paper. Then participation in this entity can be bought for cents on the dollar. 1% of $1T is still $10B.
As I wrote, there will be rules against this, and lawyers who know how to get around them. Probably involving cryptocurrencies and pay-outs to the most corrupt politician of all ages, or whatever he calls himself today.
"Probably involving cryptocurrencies and pay-outs to the most corrupt politician of all ages, or whatever he calls himself today."
It's turning out that crypto isn't as anonymous as people first thought. It's an impediment to an investigation that takes a special (expensive) effort so if you trying to diddle a few tens of thousands off your taxes, maybe They won't track you down. A billion and a high profile makes you a much larger target worthy of a deeper investigation since once the lid is off, much more will be reflecting the photons.
A graph of car totals over time from Tesla has been ramping up since Marc and Martin founded the company and started delivering the first Roadster (delayed by Elon). That's slowing considerably since they haven't produced a viable new model in many years. The main metric for payouts to Elon seems to be stock price. With a goal like that and several nearly impossible other goals, the focus will be on pumping the stock until the stock awards at least equal that roughly $55bn payout nullified by the courts. There doesn't seem to be much in the way of foundational goals. No new factories, new car models, a more compatible and profitable charging network, etc. The base of the company is riddled with porosity. Putting batteries in big boxes, while profitable, isn't rocket surgery and Tesla wasn't the first in that market and doesn't hold any advantage over other large players. The barrier to entry is also not that high. There's a certain scale needed for a rival company to look solid enough to convince customers to buy, but that's just money and not a large amount (comparatively).
The things that people believe will send the stock into higher realms are a lot of dreaming. There is no humanoid robot market existing so there has to be an application demonstrated that shows commercial buyers a solid ROI. Common Sense Skeptic did an analysis on whether Starlink could ever become profitable and part of that was showing worldwide annual incomes (in US dollars) across the world. If most of the world's population can't afford Starlink, there's no way they could afford Optimus nor does it seem they could earn enough return on one if they could somehow get financing. To portray them as a cheap household servant when more and more people can't afford to buy a house (in central London, LA, NY), is silly.
Robocabs are a curiosity that only seem to have any chance at a profit in dense city centers where taxis are commonly used by people over owning their own vehicle. Some proponents try to show that the numbers will work in other places buy seem to be optimistic about cleaning, vandalism and costs for insurance and certifications. There would also need to be some way to recharge them and while inductive charging seems like a good solution, for a large number of vehicles in a fleet, the losses may be more expensive than having a parking lot staff person that can plug the cars in and hose out the sick, remove the take away rubbish and erase the more profane graffiti.
>Way too many of the one percent, and those who desperately want to be in the one percent [...]
This isn't about the one percent. Globally, probably I am in the 1%, just by virtue of living in a Western country and having a good job.
This is about the one percent of the one percent of the fucking one percent, ogling upwards at the one percent of themselves. Nobody is going to convince me that society is made better by having these categories.
I'd argue that most of Teslas board members should be subject to a sanity check. The only saving grace is the provision that sets some performance benchmarks before the nazi gets his payout. But to even consider 1T golden parachute...
Also, average "investors" should reconsider their engagement in stock market in general. Clearly the original purpose of getting funds to expand business is no longer true. It's just a shell game to benefit boards, CEOs and stock brokers (always) and should be treated as such for tax purposes.
"It's just a shell game"
If you have ONLY noticed this now ... you have really not been paying attention for the last 60+ years !!!
The so called average punter who puts their money into the 'Stock Market' is simply engaging in a conplex [typo/freudian slip ???] betting game.
The primary intent to fund companies growth has long been lost in the 'mists of time'.
The evolution of comuterised trading and ever more complex 'investment instruments' has made it a very complex game that you are disadvantaged at playing due to lack of ... sufficient funds or leverage/computerised high-speed access & trading/reduced information of the 'game' and its rules/variable quality of information to 'qualify' investment ideas ... to name a few of the more obvious areas where 'outsiders' are out of step with the 'real' game players.
The bulk of the money that lines the pockets of the big players comes from the 'visitors' who learn the downside of the game very quickly for a 'price' !!!
The people with the deepest pockets can ride the swings of the market and win over the longer term ... money tends to 'attract' money because you can absorb the losses in the short-term to reap the gains in the longer term.
Being a new investor on the 'outside' can be like playing poker with card-counters when you don't know what card-counting is.
The rules are the same for everyone in the game BUT you are at a disadvantage and will lose in the end !!!
:)
> The primary intent to fund companies growth has long been lost in the 'mists of time'.
Totally have to agree with you as I always understood that issuing shares is what companies did to raise capital to do "X", and those buying them were rewarded with dividends.
Now the share market is just to get rich trading shares.
"otal Revenue Q3 2025 $28.1B, Total Revenue Q3 2024 $25.2B, +12%"
Yeeeeesssss, but. Heavy discounts and a loss of free government money going forward is a wee problem.
Annual NET profit has been dropping by about $3bn/year since it peaked in 2022. It's not what you make, it's what you keep.
"The pyrolysis products cause cancer"
Kirk Hammett of Metallica is a well known stoner and has been since high school. When you hear him talk in interviews, it's very obvious. There's a certain sort of brain damage that goes on. Doctors that work with people that enjoy recreational drugs can often spot their poison of choice right away in a short interview. Cancer is a much more long term health issue that can stem from many different things. Breathing the smoke from anything being burned is not healthy. Some things worse than others, but nothing "perfectly safe".
Some people probably do call good mental health "brain damage". People who habitually smoke cannabis are generally mellow and pleasant. They are generally not out robbing liquor stores at gun point for their next joint. They are generally not picking bar fights and beating on their spouses and killing innocent people in vehicle collisions. They are generally listening to music and spending enjoyable time with people they like. Some people might call it a "wasted life" to not be out there in the rat race scrabbling for every possible dollar, but that's like your opinion man. Peace be with you.
[Bob Marley smoking an enormous reefer icon]
The intoxicant that most clearly causes cancer is alcohol. Like no question, leagues ahead.
Tobacco clearly causes cancer, but I would like to know if it is actually the tobacco or if it is all the crap added to industrially produced cigarettes. "Formaldehyde for flavour!"
Cannabis does not clearly cause cancer. In fact more and more research shows otherwise, now that funding is becoming more and more available for any research besides finding any possible negative thing to say about it. "Kills brain cells" - yes if you fit a space helmet to a monkey and fill it with nothing but cannabis smoke, guess what the monkey will end up with asphyxiated brain cells. "Causes schizophrenia" - yes if you are prone to schizophrenia you will gravitate towards self medicating and we should all hope you settle on something relatively harmless like cannabis. Safer than aspirin, less addictive than caffeine.
"yes if you fit a space helmet to a monkey and fill it with nothing but cannabis smoke, guess what the monkey will end up with asphyxiated brain cells"
I've known a few pot smokers that pretty much did that. Tobacco smokers as well. The current trend is vapor and there are plenty of people that spend their whole day swapping batteries in their juice box.
...Tesla's stockholders are delusional...
...Some day soon, and it won't be long, the money merry-go-around will stop spinning and all those dreams will come crashing to a halt...
Those two sentences are VERY valid IF and only IF they are strictly tied together in one sentence:
"Tesla stockholders are delusional, because they still hold Tesla stock. The money merry-go-round will stop spinning. Ditch it now".
This is a fair assessment, which will become reality, or will not.
Isolating the two in two separate sentences is just bandwagon singalong.
...Tesla's stockholders are delusional...
Because they voted for some impossibility ? Why is everyone so outraged ? It's not going to happen. It can't happen. What's the big deal ? That there's a risk it happens ? And if it happens - what will Hitlon be able to do with one trillion that he can't do now with 500 bil ?
Tesla's stockholders don't need to be delusional to vote for something that doesn't bite them if it doesn't happen, or hypotetically makes their stocks jump in the impossible event it does happen. Their stock is overevaluated anyway. De-muskifying the company will hit the stock harder than keeping it in the news. The abundant infinity of love they'll receive from society for doing the right thing should they kick Hitlon out will not raise the stock when Tesla's lie-dust and smoke and mirror glitter go away.
They would only be delusional if they think it could actually happen.
Does no one remember old jokes anymore ?
- If you had 9 castles, would you give me one ?
- Sure
- If you had 9 yachts, would you give me one ?
- Sure
- If you had 9 shirts, would you give one ?
- Absolutely not.
- Why ?
- Because I DO have 9 shirts
Tesla stockholders have been asked to promise one of their nine castles and one of their nine yachts. Knowing plain well that their nine shirts are threatened big time, one way or the other.
Any Tesla stockholder is tainted post-DOGE, no matter what. Because, errr, ...Some day soon, and it won't be long, the money merry-go-around will stop spinning and all those dreams will come crashing to a halt....
The guilt is automatic by the simple fact of stock ownership, not because they'd vote for or against. I haven't seen many articles or opinions congratulating the stockholders that voted against, for doing the right thing :-D
...a situation where you'd have to deliver if asked....
Precisely.
I am not stating whether Tesla stockholders are right or wrong. I'm just pointing out that there are a multitude of reasons for them to choose to vote yes or no. And for the ones who voted yes - being delusional is one very valid reason, but far from being the only one or the main one.
All he needs is a shareholder vote to lower the targets a few years from now to make them more achievable. He'll have some excuses ready for why that's necessary, like "the AI bubble burst set the market behind in robot demand", "competition from China is hurting our car sales", "a less favorable regulatory environment without Trump to use federal power to prevent states from regulatory or banning robotaxis in the name of public safety"
"All he needs is a shareholder vote to lower the targets a few years from now to make them more achievable. "
According to the deal, his buddies on the BoD can do that without a shareholder vote. They can decide "Close Enough" and award him the tranche.
So, yes, Elon won't be getting the full $1t in compensation, but that's not what this award was meant to do. This makes $58B look small, so people won't notice that he's still getting way more than any CEO ever should be getting.
No one person adds $58 billion to a company's bottom line. But this $1t gets people talking about the wrong number.
Along the way Musk will do Musk:
1. Legally challenge the wording of the contracts. [Vary the meaning in his favour !!!]
2. Threaten to leave and thereby reduce the value of Tesla. [Shareholders will trade their potential loss NOW against a potential FUTURE payout !!!]
3. Re-negotiate some agreed variation on the contract ['shares or value down'] ... for a price. [Cash in the hand NOW !!!]
This is just a starting list, I am sure we will all be surprised by Musks ingenuity to get what he wants when he wants it !!!
:)
Polarisation in politics has goon through the roof in recent times. Picking either side alienates the other side, and that's a lot of people to alienate: it makes achieving marketing goals twice as difficult. A wise businessperson would stay apolitical.
Elon is paid in stock. So if TSLA has a $7.5 trillion rise in market cap, he nets $1 trillion of that in equity. That is, he pockets 13%. But if Tesla's performance is a bit lower, Musk receives less – but on a remuneration scale already set like this in his favor. So Elon is probably awarded 13% of just about ANY decent rise in market cap.
Funnily, Elon already owns about 13% of Tesla now. So his total income from Tesla now stands at 13+13% = about a quarter of TSLA's increase in market cap. Regardless of whether that rise is trillions of dollars, or hundreds of billions of dollars.
... is if Tesla can bring to market a genuinely innovative, revolutionary, universally useful product.
No number of overpriced electric car launches will drive that kind of profit margin or shareprice growth - only complete global market dominance of an emerging, marketable technology could achieve that.
In NVIDIA's case, growth has has been due to the perceived market demand for AI processing capacity (though in all likelihood, that is a completely false narrative with circular commitments to investment between the major players artificially pumping their share prices without an actual viable long term commercial market strategy to back it all up at anything like the scale it is operating at).
I'm talking about entirely owning the technology behind, AND bringing to the mass market something like practical home robotics, or a solid state Battery technology that is an order of magnitude better (and cheaper) than LiPo, or something completely out of left field (a cure for cancer) etc.
Given a look at what Musks various companies have actually achieved though, I think its all entirely pie in the sky to expect them to actually deliver on anything meaningful. SpaceX has been near entirely funded by the US taxpayer and has massively under-delivered on all targets, Hyperloop was a joke from the outset, Tesla's robotics team are at least a decade behind Boston Dynamics, and the electric car market once dominated by Tesla is now falling to the Chinese manufacturers. Robo taxi's? Hah.
Seriously, Tesla (and Musk) are an enormous bubble, waiting to burst.
"I'm talking about entirely owning the technology behind, AND bringing to the mass market something like practical home robotics, or a solid state Battery technology that is an order of magnitude better (and cheaper) than LiPo, or something completely out of left field (a cure for cancer) etc."
Home robotics? Good luck with that as more and more people are being priced out of buying their own home. What do you call a "solid state battery". That's a term that's bandied about, but doesn't mean that much and since nobody has a mass produced thing called that, it's vaporware for the time being. Also look at energy densities of Li battery formulations and TNT (about an order of magnitude). A more important spec is number of charge/discharge cycles and intrinsic safety. Once a car can go long enough to make it past the most robust bladder, job done.
Cancer isn't just a single thing but a whole range so a "cure" is going to be a better understanding of how it gets started and approaches to treatment more than a specific treatment. The understanding that is achieved along the path continues to repay the investments many times over. It's just hard to quantify and put those payoffs on a calendar so bean counters can't see it.
Tesla's doing OK in the US because we can't buy Chinese vehicles. There are lots of reasons why we can't have these apart from the obvious governmental edicts. Our construction standards are different from other countries' -- not dramatically so but such that anyone wanting to sell here has to build special 'American' versions of the vehicles. Another is that establishing a dealer network is all but impossible due to entrenched interests and its not legal in most (all?) states to sell new vehicles unless its from a registered dealer. (Tesla found a creative way of getting around this -- you can't actually buy a Tesla from a Tesla showroom, for example -- but it cost the company a fair bit of time and effort fighting off the legal challenges.)
If we could buy Chinese vehicles (not "vehicles made in China by the usual manufacturers such as Ford", note but from companies like BYD) then the effect on Detroit would be ugly. They already had a near death experience (which they haven't really recovered from yet) when the Japanese started selling cars here. But it all adds up to Tesla being on borrowed time -- they've got a huge IP portfolio, a decent, if aging and still somewhat idiosyncratic product line and a network of chargers but nothing that couldn't be duplicated if the legal logjam bursts.
"not dramatically so but such that anyone wanting to sell here has to build special 'American' versions of the vehicles. "
Many countries/regions have their own standards. A company wanting to sell in the UK, Aus and Japan has to make a right hand drive version. When it comes to safety, the safer, the better. A company selling worldwide might want to start with the most stringent safety requirements as part of their design. Cars in the US used to have a couple of different versions. One for California and another for every other state that used Federal emissions standards. Most now are compatible with the most restrictive standards other than where there is a big cost differential (larger vehicles/engines).
My first "car" was a Ford Courier mini pickup that was a rebadged Mazda. Ford and GM have an advantage in the US due to an extensive sales, service and parts network. If they could import Chinese EV's either as a partner or get them as a rebranded version, Tesla would be eaten in less than a year. Ford has models in Europe that sit on VW skates. The electric powertrain/suspension is VW, but the coachwork is Ford. BYD builds trucks and busses in California. If they also built plants in the US to make skates, US based builders could go nuts. Double decker busses in England are BYD with the coachwork built in-country to suit.
A reminder that the board of Tesla stood by as Musk developed the cybertruck, a vehicle not only of limited appeal but which is so unconventional it can not be driven legally in the UK or the EU. In the UK it would require a special test and license. Its design is such that it cannot be modified easily to satisfy vehicle safety laws - it would require fundamental design changes.
The board of Tesla stood by as this vehicle was designed and then built, knowing that it cannot sell in bulk in the EU or UK, a massive market.
Was it arrogance? Naivety? The Musk unreality field?
On the face of it, setting Musk a new goal which is basically unachievable seems like a new era for this board- Musk has to now double down on his lies to bring in new cultists or execute on the new and much more arduous untrodden path of … actually delivering on his bold promises.
"Was it arrogance? Naivety? The Musk unreality field?"
I think the BoD might have not cared due to there being 2 million reservations from 1 million entities in just the US. That would have made the project worth the investment if it just stopped with that many. The problem was they believed Elon's forecasted MSRP, specs, etc that were pulled from his addled brain or another related bit of anatomy. The CT turned out to be lower quality, more expensive and had diminished specs. I think it was Ozzy Man that said Ford could crowd-source a load of advertising from all of the video of Ford pickups pulling Cybertrucks out of the mud/snow/sand. In the mean time, Chevy came out with their Silverado EV that isn't expensive, but, with a 200kWh battery and fast charging, can haul loads of stuff and drive long distances (see "Aging Wheels" YT video). The Chevy and Ford are much more main stream and have loads of third party accessory suppliers to kit out the trucks for most uses. I haven't seen them listed as Cab/Chassis versions, which they should have (do they?)
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