Retail investors are asking Tesla CEO Elon Musk: Are you okay?
The company opened up a Q&A channel for retail investors this week, and the dozens of questions focused on Musk are directed at the entrepreneur’s ability to right the ship at Tesla while also being focused on AI, space travel, and maintaining an involved social media presence.
Some of the top-voted questions about Musk included the following:
“Is there any discussion about oversight of Elon’s erratic behavior on X that is damaging the Tesla brand?”
“Elon, can you please let investors know how you prioritize Tesla vs. X/Twitter vs. U.S. immigration policy? A few years ago it seemed clear to me the ranking, but today it’s not clear to me as an investor & outsider.”
“If we vote for your comp package will you please at least appear to make Tesla your top priority? (Not saying crazy things on Twitter would be nice, too).”
Tesla is girding its loins for a first-quarter financial report to investors next week that is likely to force a deeper reckoning with the electric-vehicle maker’s value, which has shed $700 billion in the past three years. Its share price has tumbled 40% year to date with the stock trading at $149.30 from a peak of $409.97 in 2021.
The company’s strategy has also grown murky, with reports that the automaker could divert resources away from developing a lower-price Tesla ringing alarm bells for certain investors. Amid the turmoil, the company this week asked stockholders to approve a move to Texas as its state of incorporation from Delaware, after a Delaware judge this year rescinded Musk’s $56 billion pay package. Board chairperson Robyn Denholm asked investors to reauthorize Musk’s moonshot bonus, now valued at $45 billion, in her annual letter ahead of the company’s shareholder meeting in May. “So we are coming to you now so you can help fix this issue — which is a matter of fundamental fairness and respect to our CEO,” she said.
With just four days to go before the company gives its first-quarter financial report to investors, Tesla opened the Q&A portion of its earnings call early this week with a post on X from vice president of investor relations Martin Viecha. He invited shareholders to post their queries through the Say Technologies platform, and the opened gates racked up questions from nearly 8,000 participants in possession of 6.7 million shares. “Tesla Q1 earnings call Q&A is now open,” declared Viecha.
Tesla says it has one of the largest retail stockholder bases of any publicly traded company, and that they are “incredibly engaged and tend to have a very strong understanding of the company, and are an important base of support and feedback for management and the board,” Tesla said this week. Most companies of Tesla’s size are dominated by large institutional investors who interact with the company through preset engagement meetings rather than the more informal channels that smaller retail investors work through.
To be sure, not all the sentiment in the Q&A about Musk so far has focused on his conduct. The top-voted question about the Tesla CEO was in favor of approving his compensation and ensuring his control remains intact.
“Is the board working on a package to give Elon the 25% voting rights? I hope the answer is ‘yes,’ which leads to: Can it be expedited? Times are wasting,” said one anonymous retail investor with 265,000 shares.
Another small investor with 8,200 shares asked: “Why does Tesla’s board think that despite falling deliveries, tanking share price, increased China competition, lack of AI innovation, and a court finding of excessive compensation, Elon Musk merits restoration of his $54B executive compensation package?”
Some of the sentiment had a markedly different tone from what the company described in its proxy report this week to investors.
In asking that investors authorize Musk’s pay, the Tesla board assured them that it is confident in his leadership. In the company’s preliminary report to investors, the board said it formed a special committee that analyzed whether to call for another vote on Musk’s pay. The special committee found that “dozens of institutional stockholders” reached out to Tesla’s investor relations team to register their dissent with the court’s decision to rescind Musk’s $56 billion pay package this year. Four of the company’s top 10 investors—including asset manager T. Rowe Price—sought out Denholm to discuss Musk’s pay and sent a follow-up letter in support of the move to reauthorize it. The committee also found that 6,000 “individuals claiming to be stockholders owning more than 23 million total shares”—which the committee said was the equivalent of the company’s 11th largest institutional shareholder—sent unsolicited letters and emails to the board in support of reinstating Musk’s equity compensation.
According to the special committee’s report, those letters were overwhelmingly positive.
“A majority of my retirement is in Tesla because I believe in the mission, and the great opportunity the investment represents for me and my family. I trust Elon and the board as they have accomplished what everyone claimed was impossible. I supported the compensation plan regardless of who was on the board.”
“I hold a significant number of shares and am a proud supporter of Tesla’s mission and vision. Given these facts, I express my support for Elon Musk and Tesla’s board. Mr. Musk’s compensation plan, which was approved by shareholders in 2018, should be upheld and the option awards should stand. I, along with many other retail shareholders, would vote in favor of this compensation plan once again.”
“As a small retail investor with a majority of my investment position in Tesla stock … I expect and support that Elon Musk’s pay package will be reinstated by shareholder vote, in whole or in substantial part, with compliant disclosures.”
Other most-upvoted questions retail investors sent through the Say Technologies platform ahead of first-quarter earnings next week touched on robo-taxis, priorities for the second quarter, and progress on the cheaper next-generation Tesla.
