Tesla - Voting on Elon's $55 Billion Pay

About

In this post I talk about:

• ✅The Tesla vote as to whether Elon gets paid his original pay package

• 🧠My take on it

• 🛠️Tools for decision making

• ❓What I did

As a Tesla shareholder, I recently got asked to vote on whether Elon should receive the $55.8 Billion dollar pay package. Honestly I still find it pretty cool being the bosses boss 😃A Delaware court struck down his original pay package in January 2024.

Now as a Capital allocator I could:

• be a shit and vote not to to re-instating his pay

• allow it

Momentum

$55.8 Billion is no small lump of money and would likely help Tesla do some wonderful stuff. I believe that if you hire good people, set the right direction and build the right culture, you can step away from the helm for a long period of time and good things continue to happen. Trajectory is held for a long period of time.

Take a look at Apple and Tim Cook stepping up. Side note - I believe Apple’s innovation is dead and Apple is a utility company for human computer interfaces.

I feel if Elon left, Tesla would have strong momentum to carry them forwards. However it wouldn’t be the same.

The Vote Against

Forbes Article on Elon's Pay

I avoid reading news.

I find media to be one of the most powerful platforms for propaganda. I also feel that news brings me down and makes me fearful. The upside of not following news is I feel great. The downside is - nothing!

I saw this news article in my heavily filtered reading lists (I tell Google not to show me anything by major news outlets). The article covers a huge Tesla position holder who is voting against re-instating Elon’s package.

My initial, knee-jerk reaction was to follow suit and to keep that money in Tesla to help the company grow. I feel that Elon in the last few years has really lost interest in Tesla. There is something always newer and shinier than Tesla as it has done so well. Twitter, SpaceX, NeuraLink, whatever - they are all taking his interest.

I feel that if he doesn’t get the money, he will leave to focus on something to compete in the AI and robotics space. I feel that if he does get the money, he’ll do something to compete in the AI and robotics space.

Even if he doesn’t compete against Tesla - he has such a big target on his back for speaking his mind that the forever government in USA will work to undermine everything he does.

Either way it feels that Tesla is swimming against the tide with Elon around.

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t

Handrails for Decision making

I’ve found the hardest times in life and work are where I haven’t had a framework for decision making. Having a handrail when you are in the dark is a life and sanity saver. I think it is very important to build a set of handrails for decision making.

Drawing upon my toolbox of decision making I pulled the following two out:

• Fear/Greed - Both are these are bad for Capital Allocation. I choose not to be Greedy by taking Elon’s money

• Sticking to an agreement - This isn’t necessarily something I have as principle, but being a good human, I would try my hardest to never go back on something I agreed to

Desired Outcome

My preference is that the pay package gets re-enabled. Delaware gets severely punished for what they did and all other states take note. Business slowly stops using Delaware to incorporate.

Decisions are made on known-knowns, facts, immutable rules etc… When fact is side-swiped by a relatively ad-hoc ruling, constraints and decision making tools fall flat on their face. Governments should not interfere with free markets.

My Position

I’m going use my handrails for decision making and to stick by my principles. I voted for him to receive his package.

(Elon if you’re reading this - a Model Y wouldn’t go amiss)

However I feel the need to downsize my position due to Elon having a giant target on his back, plus his involvement has really ramped down. I feel very annoyed by what he has done.

I feel Tesla’s potential can only be realized by:

• Autonomous taxis

• Humanoid AI

You can definitely see competition creeping in on these fields. Tesla’s main advantage is manufacturing prowess, USA being increasingly protectionist with tariffs and Tesla’s large amount of video footage for training data.

One of the arguments for a Tesla having a moat is that Tesla has an unimaginable amounts of video of street/road activity. In theory you could get AI to watch all of it and aside of driving, learn human habits.

How to walk a dog. How to sit. How to cross the road. I think just simply modelling these actions in a Graphics suite such as Unity is pretty straight forward to do. I have a feeling Open AI’s Sora did this.

P.S. I reduced my position by half

- again.