Tesla has set a November 6th shareholder vote in Austin that will decide whether Elon Musk receives a performance award worth up to $1 trillion USD. Now, the board ties the award to aggressive operating and market milestones that would reshape Tesla scale and governance. And the package would arrive after a year where leadership questions met fierce debates about pay and control. What outcome does this vote create for Tesla strategy and for Musk's role across his new
companies? Tesla's chair, Robin Denholm, tells investors that Musk could walk if the plan fails. The warning lands as the voting window closes at 11:59 PM. Eastern on November 5th, hours before the annual meeting at Giga Texas. Now the message frames the vote as a retention test that links Musk's time and attention to shareholder approval. Now Tesla structure is the award as 12 tranches of stock options that vest only if Tesla hit
specific targets. And the targets include lifting market value to about $8.5 trillion and achieving major progress in autonomy and robotics. And the board positions the plan as pay for performance with no salary or cash bonuses. Now, the board asks investors to view this plan in light of earlier litigation. And Delaware Corps previously voided Musk's 2018 option grant, which Tesla has fought as it built a new path to retention
and control. You know, the company rallies support while proxy advisor scrutinized structure and governance. Now Calper CalPERS breaks ranks with Tesla's pitch and says it will vote against the plan. The fund holds roughly 5 million Tesla shares and argues that the award is too large and that it concentrates power in one person. Elon Musk and 1 shareholder. And the stance arrives one week before the meeting and gives cover to other institutions that question the packages.
Now, ISS advises investors to oppose the plan and site size structure and commitment concerns. Advisor points to the 423,000,000 share scale and the performance goals that could still yield large payouts before full targets are met. The guidance also challenges board independence as it evaluates directors tied to the plan. Now I want to know your ideas on this. There's one camp that says this guy's going to be a trillionaire. How could you give that much power to one person, that much
money to one person? And also they want to take the power away from a singular person, right? So that's one side of the story. And if they do allow Elon to keep his control and to keep doing what he does at Tesla, is that giving him too much power now? Of course, Elon is the center point of Tesla. Without Elon, Tesla would not be where it is today.
Without Elon, all of these shareholders wouldn't be making as much money as they do. But also, we have to remember what happened when Elon went all political. They lost shares. They lost sales people in their regular demographics of the coastal cities in California. They turned down Tesla and went to other vehicle manufacturers. Now, if you are Elon Musk and you are threatening to leave the company because you don't think that what you have now is worth
it, and these are his words. Not not exactly, but he's basically saying like, look, I might leave the company if I don't get what I want. If I don't get this pay package, I don't think it's worth me working there anymore. Now, everybody should understand their value. Personal side note, for the longest time, I didn't know my value when I started in the business that I started in, I was a coder. I was highly sought after.
I was charging people $300 to make them a website back when websites were just becoming websites, you know, like back in the day. And if I would have reached out to the right people, same websites, I could have gotten 10 times that. I could have gotten 4005 thousand, 6010 thousand dollars for some of the sites that I was building. Eventually I learned that value, but also people should know their value. And is Elon Musk worth a trillion dollars? Is Elon Musk worth all of this power?
And that's up to him to decide, but that's up to him internally to decide for himself. But since he is the head of a company that has shares, it's up to the shareholders to decide if he's actually worth it. Now let's talk about the other side. The other side is that these people believe in Elon Musk's vision. They understand where he's coming from. They know what he's done and what he's capable of. They know how hard he works. They know his vision.
They know that he's going to try to make a ton of his vehicles as soon as possible, which will open up a huge revenue stream, which will skyrocket their shares. They'll make a bunch more money. And those are the people they really want Elon to succeed. They want to keep him in there, and they want him to not walk away.
But if you're Elon Musk and you say you're going to walk away if you don't get this pay package, what about all those decades of work you put into this, all that work you put into Tesla, all that work that was put into all the amazing vehicles, all the amazing technology? I don't know. I'm torn on this one personally, because I think what Elon has done with Tesla is absolutely amazing. I also think that anybody can make their own decisions as far
as what they're worth. If he does leave Tesla, this company is going to tank. The stock is going to go down. And he knows that they had, he has all the shareholders, you know, or in the palm of his hand, because he knows, he understands that if he threatens to walk away because he doesn't get this pay package, he knows that all of their money would be wiped out. He has them by the wallet. And when he, or if he walks away from this, then they are going
to tank. And of course, they're going to lose millions and millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars, some of them. So he has them by the cojones. What do you do at that point if you're an investor? I want to know if you're an investor in Tesla and I do have, I want to give a little, I want to give a, some insight here. I do have a little Tesla stock, but I'm not going to vote yes for this personally. And this is not advice, by the way. I'm not going to vote for it.
But I don't have a huge, you know, I don't have millions of dollars invested in Tesla, but I do have a voice. So I, I don't know, I'm torn. What do you think? If you're a Tesla investor, let me know if you have some, if you have some shares, let me know. If you don't have shares, let me know too. I want to know what you think in the comments and whatever podcast platform you're on right now. This is a weird one. Now the board has answered with a focus on retention and
incentive. Now Den Home has talked about the risks of Tesla if they lose Musk or his role becomes uncertain. And then Home positions the award as a long term contract, which is tied to execution. So I don't know, it's, it's a tough one. And the mechanics of the vote add urgency to turn out in timing as well. Investors cast ballots up to late evening on November 5th, and the company convenes the meeting on November 6th at Giga Texas.
So you only have a few hours to gauge late momentum before results land. And you know when Mega or Giga text this happens on November 6th. If they vote against it on November 5th, will Elon Musk even show up? Who knows. So the we're talking about ownership dynamics here. If Tesla hits every single milestone, Musk's state could rise into the mid 20s or higher, which would expand his voting power and reduce the risk of further dilution.
That outcome would satisfy his Musk's stated push for a controlling position near or above 25%. He wants to control as much as possible of Tesla now. He's going to get paid for this. Of course, Tesla leans on a road map that depends on AI, autonomy, and robotics to justify a package scale to future value rather than current car sales. They know that the future is autonomy. They know that as robotics.
Every major manufacturer for the last 30 years, Mitsubishi, Hyundai, Honda, they've all made robots as well as cars. And this is the game plan that Elon is doing. He's doing autonomous vehicles as well, but he's making robots just like the other car manufacturer have. Now this board is arguing the Musk's role is central to the execution timeline and to investor confidence through the next phase of Tesla. It's a trade coming up in
November 6th. A yes vote locks an unprecedented stock grant to performance goals, strengthens Musk's stake, and sets a retention signal. A no vote invites leadership uncertainty. Who knows if he's going to leave, There's going to be critics from this. It tests the board's contingency plans. Like what happens if Elon asked actually does leave? Who do they put in his place?
But we're hearing some rumors about that and I'm going to touch on that in the next few days about who could take over if Musk leaves. I don't think he's going to leave. I think people are going to keep him in. And that's just, you know, I, I don't think he's done anything so bad that people would vote him out. He has done some bad stuff. And the, the stock has been OK, but the sales have been down and the stock keeps rising because of autonomy, not because car
sales. If they were only worried about car sales, they would be really in a pickle right now. Anyway, let me know what you think in the comments. I really do appreciate your time. Take care of yourselves and each other, and I'll see you in the next one. Hey, thank you so much for listening today. I really do appreciate your
support. If you could take a second and hit this subscribe or the follow button on whatever podcast platform that you're listening on right now, I greatly appreciate it. It helps out the show tremendously and you'll never miss an episode. And each episode is about 10 minutes or less to get you caught up quickly. And please, if you want to support the show even more, go to patreon.com/stagezero and please take care of yourselves and each other and I'll see you tomorrow.