Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tesla Shareholders Approve Elon Musk's $1T Pay Package

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 43 posts

Re: Tesla Shareholders Approve Elon Musk's $1T Pay Package

#21

Post by ben_w »

andsoitis wrote: post #20
ben_w wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla? Nothing that I know of. Not even getting the President to promote Tesla cars while Musk was working in DOGE, though that was dodgy for other reasons. Musk? Looks to me like buying government influence, using it to halt investigations against his own companies: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/04/doge-could-help-... That, plus how all of the Musk group gets smooshed together in weird ways, and how TSLA…

I fail to see how any of the examples you give unfairly limit competition in the car market? Common forms of anti-competitive behavior: price fixing, predatory pricing, cartels, abuse of dominant position to exclude rivals, etc. Tesla's competition are carmakers and this is the list of top car makers by revenue: VW, Toyota, Stellantis, Mercedes-Benz, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Tesla, BYD, and Nissan - https://www.i…

> Common forms of anti-competitive behavior: price fixing, predatory pricing, cartels, abuse of dominant position to exclude rivals, etc.

I agree that "became head of what was simultaneously de-facto and also not-de-jure government department, abused it for personal gain" is fairly un-common.

> Tesla's competition are carmakers

My claim (Note: I'm not techblueberry) is about Musk, not about Tesla.

That said:

Tesla's competition should be carmakers. The CEO (and his board, and his shareholders) seem to be all on the same different page to you and I, that they're all about AI and robotics now.

Re: Tesla Shareholders Approve Elon Musk's $1T Pay Package

#22

Post by ben_w »

enslavedrobot wrote: post #14
Ethee wrote: post #5

So I'll admit up front I don't know a lot about investing, but I at least understand a decent amount about business fundamentals. What I can't understand is why Tesla's stock hasn't tanked yet. They're losing business across every sector they sell in, they're trying to hard pivot to robotics technology and they have the most vocal egocentric CEO constantly trying to extract personal value from the company. If I owned…

Tesla isn't tanking for the same reason Amazon didn't tank when they built AWS. They used a low margin business to nurture one of the greatest businesses in history. Tesla aims to do the same thing with robotaxi, energy, and eventually humanoid robots. You might not think they will succeed but enough people do that the stock price reflects about a 10-20% chance of success. Just the robotaxi business alone could be wo…

> Just the robotaxi business alone could be worth hundreds of billions a year in avoided insurance costs and save the average Western family about $5k in transportation costs annually. If it works. Most people don't think it will, but most people thought Amazon wouldn't work either.

For me, it's not that FSD will never work, it's that they're obviously at least 6 years behind Waymo.

For humanoid robots, again, it's not that it will never work, it's that not only is there plenty of competition that's already beating Tesla to the market for the "mostly remote controlled with a bit of automation" model (which is useful, I don't want to undersell that), but also that there will be at least a 5-10 year gap between the AI hardware necessary for a level-5 self driving car fitting in the power envelope of a car, and the hardware fitting in the power envelope of a humanoid robot that can get into a car and drive it (and that a fully autonomous humanoid robot is harder than level-5 self driving).

Energy? Again with the competition: they're one of the worst current brands in the world market — it's not the idea's wrong, it's just that they're the Blockbuster to a dozen would-be Netflixes.

Even with cars, competition from cheaper better models from China and Europe would already be biting Tesla's global sales even if Musk was not angering a significant fraction of what used to be Tesla's core market (upper-middle-class environmentalists).

Re: Tesla Shareholders Approve Elon Musk's $1T Pay Package

#23

Post by coliveira »

Ethee wrote: post #5

So I'll admit up front I don't know a lot about investing, but I at least understand a decent amount about business fundamentals. What I can't understand is why Tesla's stock hasn't tanked yet. They're losing business across every sector they sell in, they're trying to hard pivot to robotics technology and they have the most vocal egocentric CEO constantly trying to extract personal value from the company. If I owned…

Tesla never traded on value. It has always been a kind of meme stock. The CEO will promise the sky, give 10% of what he promised. The shareholders will praise that as something incredible, then change the focus to another area. Now they're again changing the focus to Ai and robotics, even though Musk himself has a competitor company in this area. It's a never ending game that in a decent country should have stoped long ago.

Re: Tesla Shareholders Approve Elon Musk's $1T Pay Package

#24

Post by enslavedrobot »

ben_w wrote: post #22
enslavedrobot wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla isn't tanking for the same reason Amazon didn't tank when they built AWS. They used a low margin business to nurture one of the greatest businesses in history. Tesla aims to do the same thing with robotaxi, energy, and eventually humanoid robots. You might not think they will succeed but enough people do that the stock price reflects about a 10-20% chance of success. Just the robotaxi business alone could be wo…

> Just the robotaxi business alone could be worth hundreds of billions a year in avoided insurance costs and save the average Western family about $5k in transportation costs annually. If it works. Most people don't think it will, but most people thought Amazon wouldn't work either. For me, it's not that FSD will never work, it's that they're obviously at least 6 years behind Waymo. For humanoid robots, again, it's n…

The competition argument is common. The counter point is that Tesla makes their products with greater efficiency. For instance no car company outside of China except Tesla makes a profit on EV sales. If Tesla lost as much money per car as Rivian, a model Y would be under 30k.

Waymo cars are ~$200k each the new robocab will be closer to ~$20k to produce. These business advantages are why the market has some degree of faith that Tesla will out compete companies like waymo in the quest for .30cents per mile costs. Currently Waymo is well above $2per mile and has no clear path to 30cents. Getting to 30 cents is the only way to unlock the trillion dollar opportunity, otherwise you're just recreating Uber.

These are the types of considerations that make Tesla attractive to risk tolerant investors.

Re: Tesla Shareholders Approve Elon Musk's $1T Pay Package

#26

Post by andsoitis »

ben_w wrote: post #21
andsoitis wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fail to see how any of the examples you give unfairly limit competition in the car market? Common forms of anti-competitive behavior: price fixing, predatory pricing, cartels, abuse of dominant position to exclude rivals, etc. Tesla's competition are carmakers and this is the list of top car makers by revenue: VW, Toyota, Stellantis, Mercedes-Benz, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Tesla, BYD, and Nissan - https://www.i…

> Common forms of anti-competitive behavior: price fixing, predatory pricing, cartels, abuse of dominant position to exclude rivals, etc. I agree that "became head of what was simultaneously de-facto and also not-de-jure government department, abused it for personal gain" is fairly un-common. > Tesla's competition are carmakers My claim (Note: I'm not techblueberry) is about Musk, not about Tesla. That said: Tesla's…

> Tesla's competition should be carmakers. The CEO (and his board, and his shareholders) seem to be all on the same different page to you and I, that they're all about AI and robotics now.

A company can choose to expand their market via new lines of business, surely!

Re: Tesla Shareholders Approve Elon Musk's $1T Pay Package

#27

Post by Zigurd »

enslavedrobot wrote: post #24
ben_w wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just the robotaxi business alone could be worth hundreds of billions a year in avoided insurance costs and save the average Western family about $5k in transportation costs annually. If it works. Most people don't think it will, but most people thought Amazon wouldn't work either. For me, it's not that FSD will never work, it's that they're obviously at least 6 years behind Waymo. For humanoid robots, again, it's n…

The competition argument is common. The counter point is that Tesla makes their products with greater efficiency. For instance no car company outside of China except Tesla makes a profit on EV sales. If Tesla lost as much money per car as Rivian, a model Y would be under 30k. Waymo cars are ~$200k each the new robocab will be closer to ~$20k to produce. These business advantages are why the market has some degree of…

Calling Tesla investors risk tolerant is overly kind. Waymo vehicles might cost a lot, but they work, and Waymo as a business is in commerce. Waymo's real competitors are two or three Chinese companies that currently have fewer vehicles on the road than Waymo, they all use a sensor suite comparable to that on the Waymo vehicles, and one reason why they can't scale as fast as Waymo is likely that they need a lot more supervision than Waymo's fleet.

Two of the three leading Chinese companies are affiliated with large internet platform companies. Those internet platform companies have detailed geospatial data for reasons apart from their robotaxis.

Tesla isn't just behind Waymo. They are in fifth place and an outlier technologically.

Re: Tesla Shareholders Approve Elon Musk's $1T Pay Package

#28

Post by ben_w »

enslavedrobot wrote: post #24
ben_w wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just the robotaxi business alone could be worth hundreds of billions a year in avoided insurance costs and save the average Western family about $5k in transportation costs annually. If it works. Most people don't think it will, but most people thought Amazon wouldn't work either. For me, it's not that FSD will never work, it's that they're obviously at least 6 years behind Waymo. For humanoid robots, again, it's n…

The competition argument is common. The counter point is that Tesla makes their products with greater efficiency. For instance no car company outside of China except Tesla makes a profit on EV sales. If Tesla lost as much money per car as Rivian, a model Y would be under 30k. Waymo cars are ~$200k each the new robocab will be closer to ~$20k to produce. These business advantages are why the market has some degree of…

Musk's claimed $20k price for the Cybercab is not credible until actually delivered, given what happened with Cybertruck.

But obviously, Musk's diminishing credibility isn't seen as a problem by investors because if it was he'd be kicked out.

That aside:

> For instance no car company outside of China except Tesla makes a profit on EV sales

BMW Group says otherwise: https://www.bmwgroup.com/content/dam/grpw/websites/bmwgroup_...

(And yes, BMW do have an autopilot, who knows if they'll hit their schedule, but all they have to do to beat Musk with delivering this is not slip as much as him, and he slips a lot in a way that only looks good when the comparison is US government space contractors: https://daxstreet.com/news/228484/bmw-sets-sights-on-level-4...)

Lots of the EU companies don't say much about separate profitability of ICE vs. EV, or if they do I couldn't find it.

But even then, so what if Tesla was the only non-Chinese EV company making a profit? Those Chinese EVs are still causing trouble for the old manufacturing bases in the US and Europe even though the Chinese cars have huge tariffs.

Tesla's prices only work against traditional manufacturers, and American ones at that (here in Europe, we're not big on Ford or General Motors either, lots of European EVs are getting nice and cheap way ahead of Musk actually delivering anything for $20k) — Tesla don't get to keep a big margin when Wuling or BYD comes along and gives Americans (or indeed anyone else) an EV that's $18k (/€18k/£18k) despite tariffs.

> Currently Waymo is well above $2per mile and has no clear path to 30cents.

Neither does Tesla. Like I said, Tesla are at least 6 years behind. Tesla's still got humans behind the wheel, and what statistics can be found in public information they have a high rate of manual intervention compared to Waymo.

Unless something has changed recently, Tesla's (so-called, and much criticised for the name) "Full Self-Driving" is SAE Level 2, whereas Waymo was already testing Level 4 autonomy back in 2017. (That's 8 years, not 6, I'm being generous even just by allowing Tesla to claim the current Tesla Robotaxi to count as an equivalent of the first commercial Waymo Robotaxi service, given the Waymo commercial service started several years after a few very impressive public demonstrations which, unlike Musk's demonstrations, have yet to be tainted by lawsuits revealing the involvement of metaphorical smoke and mirrors).

Re: Tesla Shareholders Approve Elon Musk's $1T Pay Package

#29

Post by Zigurd »

enslavedrobot wrote: post #14
Ethee wrote: post #5

So I'll admit up front I don't know a lot about investing, but I at least understand a decent amount about business fundamentals. What I can't understand is why Tesla's stock hasn't tanked yet. They're losing business across every sector they sell in, they're trying to hard pivot to robotics technology and they have the most vocal egocentric CEO constantly trying to extract personal value from the company. If I owned…

Tesla isn't tanking for the same reason Amazon didn't tank when they built AWS. They used a low margin business to nurture one of the greatest businesses in history. Tesla aims to do the same thing with robotaxi, energy, and eventually humanoid robots. You might not think they will succeed but enough people do that the stock price reflects about a 10-20% chance of success. Just the robotaxi business alone could be wo…

While Amazon was running in the red, they could've turned profitable before they did. They could just turn the knob on pricing and become profitable. Bezos is very much a numbers guy.

Elon flies by the seat of his pants. There's no knob at Tesla. There's no robotaxi product or service yet. Viability is way more than a question of pricing.

Re: Tesla Shareholders Approve Elon Musk's $1T Pay Package

#30

Post by ben_w »

andsoitis wrote: post #26
ben_w wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Common forms of anti-competitive behavior: price fixing, predatory pricing, cartels, abuse of dominant position to exclude rivals, etc. I agree that "became head of what was simultaneously de-facto and also not-de-jure government department, abused it for personal gain" is fairly un-common. > Tesla's competition are carmakers My claim (Note: I'm not techblueberry) is about Musk, not about Tesla. That said: Tesla's…

> Tesla's competition should be carmakers. The CEO (and his board, and his shareholders) seem to be all on the same different page to you and I, that they're all about AI and robotics now. A company can choose to expand their market via new lines of business, surely!

Sure, I'm just saying that they don't agree with you (or me) that their "competition are carmakers".

They say this very loudly when you point at the P/E ratio being 30-60 times that of traditional car companies.

I mean, their competition clearly are carmakers, because while Tesla talks about the robots they don't actually sell them — but the if the shareholders are happy and the board are happy then the CEO can make a bunch of remote control androids and fail to sell them for a few years while other people start eating their lunches.

Post reply on HN