# I pit Elmo and his Tesla heist **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 13, 2024, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-elmo-and-his-tesla-heist/1002838 "2024-06-13T14:21:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2024, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-elmo-and-his-tesla-heist/1002838/161 "2024-06-16T20:56:08Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > But if I indirectly own TSLA through some aggregate fund whose components I have no control over, I’m not going to waste my energy getting outraged about it. Calibrating outrage is a good life skill. I’m not outraged either. But FTR, Tesla is now about 1.11% of the S&P 500. > [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Even if the court decided that the package was a larger incentive than required, that doesn’t address the power aspect, because that isn’t related to incentives at all. I would guess that the court didn’t do that, because the power aspect was not argued in the original proxy, so it was outside of the court’s scope. Generally speaking while the country has a serious executive compensation problem, Delaware courts have no inclination to wade into that. It was only TSLA’s special circumstances that prompted the decision.\*\* That said, if the judge did have purview over this issue, I impute from her argument that it’s questionable whether this is the only way or the cheapest way to insulate TSLA from outside forces. In the case of Sam Altman those outside forces were _the board of directors itself_. So I don’t think Musk will have that problem: his board is rather supine. For example, they don’t consider the award of $55 billion to a single tech bro to be part of an adversarial process LOL. Sure, other outside forces could come into play, but giving Musk a single measily billion dollars of stock options :😭: with 55x the voting power could accomplish the same goals (and could be struck down by its shareholders because the power grab would be too unclothed). \*\* Amusingly, Musk wants to move corporate ownership to Texas to get him out of the clutches of Fortune-500 friendly Delaware law. That IMHO could come to bite him in the ass in 10 years. Because Texas juries and Texas courts hand down probably the most erratic decisions in the country. They’ve been right-wing erratic for the past 5 years or so, but Texas judicial weirdness has been an ongoing thing for decades. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2024, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-elmo-and-his-tesla-heist/1002838/162 "2024-06-16T21:05:48Z")
> [@epbrown](#): > > I basically stick with companies in the Top 20 of the SP500 by market cap, and pretty much **any** of those would do the same over that period; it’s how I wound up with Tesla. Now tell me about your [XOM](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExxonMobil) investment. 🙂 (I hope you dodged [C](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citigroup)!) You are correct that the SP 100 (the highest capitalization companies in the S&P 500) has outperformed the broader index, something reflecting the increasing monopoly power within the US corporate economy. (There are ETFs that track the S&P 100, but they have higher expense ratios.) The past couple of decades have been great for large caps, but that wasn’t the case during the 1970s or 1980s and that won’t be the case forever. ---
**Author:** ![epbrown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e47774/32.png) [@epbrown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epbrown)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2024, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-elmo-and-his-tesla-heist/1002838/163 "2024-06-17T01:57:23Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Now tell me about your [XOM](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExxonMobil) investment. 🙂 (I hope you dodged [C](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citigroup)!) I buy _from_ the top 20, but not all of them; I never had Exxon or Citigroup. My stumbles have been Boeing and Intel, and Intel’s decline led me to Nvidia so that’s worked out. I do that “buy what you know” thing so being a computer nerd set me up from tech investing right on time. Tesla was an aberration. I’m into cars, but I’ve never found the companies to be great investments. Honestly, I don’t care how successful the company becomes, I’ll be glad I got out, thanks to Elon. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2024, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-elmo-and-his-tesla-heist/1002838/164 "2024-06-17T02:16:15Z")
I expect a car industry bloodbath over the next 2 decades. Internal combustion engines vehicles are just far more difficult to make that electric ones. So the barriers to entry in an already crowded legacy industry (because every country wanted a national champion way back when) will come crashing down. Boeing has been a national embarrassment: HQ needs to move back to Washington state (metaphorically: I don’t pretend to know how to turn them around). Intel is still a profitable and entirely viable company, but its stumble has been interesting (and costly for it shareholders). ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2024, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-elmo-and-his-tesla-heist/1002838/165 "2024-12-02T23:02:48Z")
UPDATE, Breaking news: In a 101 page decision, Judge McCormick again rejects Musk’s Tesla pay package. I didn’t see that coming. I support McCormick’s previous decision, but am agnostic about this one, pending review. > **[Elon Musk request to reinstate his $56 billion Tesla pay package is again...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elon-musk-tesla-pay-package-rejected-56-billion-delaware-judge/)** > > Elon Musk was seeking to reinstate a massive 2018 Tesla pay package after shareholders had reapproved it, but a judge denied his request. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2024, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-elmo-and-his-tesla-heist/1002838/166 "2024-12-04T00:12:34Z")
Matt Levine, Bloomberg’s highly entertaining columnist who fears neither footnotes nor granular analysis, weighs in on Delaware Chancery Court Judge Kathaleen St. J. McCormick’s latest decision. In the latest proxy vote, shareholders agreed to a) overturn McCormick’s decision and b) move the company from Delaware to Texas, presumably to flee from Fortune 500 friendly Delaware. The original proxy prophetically stated that, “Even a favorable vote by our stockholders to ratify the 2018 CEO Performance Award may not fully resolve the matter.” Apparently not. The ruling gave 4 reasons why shareholders couldn’t overturn this court decision. > There are at least four fatal flaws. First, the defendants have no procedural ground for flipping the outcome of an adverse post-trial decision based on evidence they created after trial. Second, common-law ratification is an affirmative defense that must be timely raised, which means that, at a minimum, it cannot be raised for the first time after the post-trial opinion. Third, what the defendants call “common law ratification” has no basis in the common law—a stockholder vote standing alone cannot ratify a conflicted-controller transaction. Fourth, even if a stockholder vote could have a ratifying effect, it could not do so here due to multiple, material misstatements in the proxy statement. … > Defendants argue that transactions resulting from breaches of the duty of loyalty can be put to a stockholder vote at any time for any purpose—including to extinguish already adjudicated claims or reverse the outcome of a court decision—because “stockholders hold the power to adopt any corporate acts they deem in their own best interests.” That statement is dubious generally and unquestionably false in the context of a conflicted-controller transaction. Personally I think there’s a case to be made for discouraging massive executive stock option grants under an environment the directors considered to be non-adversarial (!). Also I was not aware that the most recent proxy statement had, “Multiple, material misstatements”. On the one hand, it’s pretty damning that the directors couldn’t get their act together for this latest rubber stamping. On the other hand, Elon Musk is a beautiful person who moved one of the directors to tears during a deposition. Why won’t anybody think of Elmo? Sniff. Tesla is expected to appeal. What if they lose? Matt Levine: > Well, Tesla’s board could just decide to give him the options _again_, and ask shareholders to vote to approve them again. This is slightly different from the previous vote this year: There, Tesla asked its shareholders to “ratify” the options that Musk got in 2018, to reverse the judge’s decision and make it so that they were never taken away. This did not work; a shareholder vote, it turns out, cannot reverse a judge’s decision. But giving him a new grant of options — the same amount of the same options as he got in 2018 — would not have that problem. > It would have other problems… Other problems include a ginormous accounting hit, unfavorable tax treatment relative to the original grant, and the fact that the incentives set up to have Tesla attract Elon’s attention, _didn’t work at all_. Musk set up a competing and separate AI firm, purchased twitter, and appointed himself best buddy to Donald Trump. Finally, Musk isn’t a great manager: his genius lies in [building organizations](https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/why-americas-future-could-hinge-on). That mission is accomplished at Tesla. Noah Smith: > How does he do it? The exact specifics are probably impossible to pin down, but the general contours are nothing mysterious. Elon isn’t hyperintelligent or hyper-creative. Most of the engineers at SpaceX or Tesla are probably better at their jobs than he could be. His superpower — according to a bunch of people I’ve talked to in the tech industry — is _gathering, motivating, coordinating, and setting goals for human talent_ . > This is the same superpower [possessed by Genghis Khan](https://www.amazon.com/Genghis-Khan-Conquests-Empire-Legacy/dp/0306825171), or Henry Ford, or Vladimir Lenin, or Matsushita Kōnosuke, or any number of other people who built big organizations from scratch. Humanity is a collective organism — directed toward a common goal, we can accomplish incredible things. But our talents are not equal, our motivations are not consistent, and our goals are not naturally aligned. An organization-builder is someone who takes the purposefulness of a single individual and applies it to a group of people. Matt Levine: [Elon Still Can’t Get His Money - Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-12-03/elon-still-can-t-get-his-money?srnd=homepage-americas#footer-ref-footnote-1) (sub req) ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2024, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-elmo-and-his-tesla-heist/1002838/167 "2024-12-04T00:43:42Z")
So shockingly I’m much less concerned about Elmo’s Tesla heist than I was back in June when I wrote this thread Whatever the outcome of that case I’m sure Elmo’s attempts to help the “efficiency” of the US economy under Trump will make it, and his management of Tesla and the cyber truck project, look like an enlightened bit of management genius. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2024, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-elmo-and-his-tesla-heist/1002838/168 "2024-12-19T06:25:42Z")
How much is he gonna heist the US Taxpayers for? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-elmo-and-his-tesla-heist/1002838.md?page=8)