Mega Thread for Tesla Investors

Well obviously Musk believes he can either negotiate that down or win in court, or he would have taken the offer.

There is a wide spectrum of opinions offered in comments to IEVs news articles on this subject. Everything from "The SEC has overplayed its hand, even some reporters at the press conference indicated so with their questions"... to "The SEC put up a ladder for Elon to escape, but he foolishly clawed it away."

Again, I'm not a "financial guy" so I don't know enough to offer an opinion. I initially thought, based on what others who know more said, that the SEC would just give Tesla a moderate fine and a personal wrist slap for Elon. But clearly the SEC has decided to treat this as a more serious matter. Some say that's because Elon isn't showing the penitent attitude the SEC expects in such cases. Again, I don't know.

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Stay tuned for the next thrilling chapter in our soap opera, "As the Wheels Revolve, or What's a South-African-Canadian-American Billionaire Entrepreneur-Inventor Rocket Scientist Visionary Futurist to Do?"

(And... what about Naomi?)

 

I don't think you're yelling loud enough. You need a larger font size to make what you say seem important.

 

I am not lawyer or anything like but, I do not think that is right. There are two sets of people one is the Board of Directors and other is Corporate Officers. I googled it and there are several articles on this including the link below. State rules govern how many corporate officers there need to be at the minimum and a person can be both a director and a corporate officer, each group having its own fiduciary responsibilities. It may be different for HOA and non profits, but for corporations this is general rule, that the Board designates a set of corporate officers.

https://corporations.uslegal.com/basics-of-corporations/shareholders-directors-and-officers/

 

Okay, thank you for pointing out my error on this subject.

I made the mistake of generalizing from my own experience (a fallacy of Hasty Generalization) serving on the Board of Directors in a club where all the corporate officers were also board members. In a larger organization, it is apparently typical for these functions to be separate. Or at any rate, the article you pointed to (and others on the subject which I found with the help of Mr. Google) so indicate.

I remember discussion when the club was incorporated; the State of Missouri requires at least three corporate officers, which (if I recall correctly) were by default designated President, Vice President, and Treasurer, unless the organization specified other titles for its officers. In our club those positions became Director, newsletter Editor, and Treasurer.

Not that this has anything to do with who is or isn't a corporate officer at Tesla Inc.

 

Right if you noticed these three positions (President.....) need not be members of the Board of Directors, they usually are in most small organizations.

The reason for this discussion on corporate officers comes from the possibility that Elon Musk is sanctioned and told he cannot be a director or corporate officer for two years. My response that Elon can still be a senior executive in Tesla and run the show but he has to at least on paper be under the supervision of another executive. For example, let us say the Board creates a position of President and Chief of Engineering, Manufacturing and Sales and operations for the Tesla Division and appoints Elon to that position. The Board then creates a similar position for the Solar City Division (which can be carved out to be very small) and appoints another person who is ostensibly a peer of Elon, both reporting to the new CEO appointed by the Board. In this hypothetical situation, Elon is responsible for everything in the Tesla division but not in the Solar City division and there is an overall CEO who is the corporate officer minding the shop. Nothing really changes, but Elon is not considered as a corporate officer and hence can run the show the way he wants without running afoul of SEC. Again is this is hypothetical and very simplistic and is improbable. All I am trying to point out is that SEC actions may not have the bite or cripple Tesla they way that naysayers believe. The reaction to the SEC action in my opinion is, a storm in a teacup.

This is not to say that Elon did the right thing, he did not. This one incident is not the fatal blow.

 

May: 456
June: 2329 <-- congrats bulls, EV record by a country kilometre
July: 115
August: 95 <-- congrats bears? ... and under 200,000 USA sales​

That is also the pattern of Tesla staying under 200,000 USA sales in Q2. Thus getting the maximum $7.5k Federal tax credit for Q3 and Q4.

Bob Wilson

 

With the weekend and Sunday, does your team get an extra day to work the numbers ... if sources are available? Or would having the month end on a Friday give your team more quality time?

Bob Wilson

 

Personal opinion but even if Musk ‘won’ the suit, it would not reverse the perception that the “funding secured” was inaccurate.

Pay the fine and move on.

Bob Wilson

 

WOW: All this on a Saturday. I guess the Board and others put pressure on Elon to settle as this is not a distraction that the company needs. Fighting with the SEC requires time and effort and this was a fairly slam dunk case. $20 million to Elon is chump change, but to Tesla it is the margin from about 1900 Model 3 cars (assuming average sales price is $55,000 and margin is 20$, the average earning is $11,000 before other expenses per car. At a loss of $11,000 per car, they have sell about 1818 cars, say 1900 cars to make it up). Not disastrous but not good. Elon has to give up some power, which is good, there have two more outside directors which is also good. It would wise to get experienced people, known for both their integrity and ability to stand up to Elon and not connected to him in any way, but I am not sure that will happen. Both Elon and Tesla have to grow up and this may be time they begin their journey to adulthood.

The biggest casualty however may be Elon's ego. He refused the earlier deal, forcing SEC to sue him and then more or less agreed to the same conditions. This also could have been avoided.

 

Your comment is rather timely, as it has now been announced that Elon has settled with the SEC; he will remain as CEO of Tesla, but give up his Chairman of the Board position for at least 3 years.

Does that mean he's no longer a corporate officer? It would seem strange to me that a CEO wouldn't be a corporate officer, but having exposed my ignorance on this subject, I'll decline to guess.

I think Domenick already posted a link in his comment above, but here it is again:

From the InsideEVs news site: "SEC Settles With Musk: Remains Tesla CEO, No Longer Chairman"

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I share your opinion. So far as I can see from the latest IEVs news article on the subject, Elon agreed to the very same deal that the SEC offered but he initially refused. Either he reconsidered, or more likely (as you say) Tesla's Board of Directors pressured him to take the deal.

Tesla might well be turning the corner to steady profitability. If Tesla is going to be announcing a significant quarterly profit a very few days from now, they don't need the distraction from this SEC suit hanging over Elon's head.

You took the words right out of my keyboard. I was gonna write a lengthy comment saying the same thing, but you've said it better and more succinctly.

 

Yup. I see "TeslaInvestors" is still posting deep-in-denial comments, keeping up a brave face, but I rather suspect that in truth, he's sweating bullets over what's going to happen to his "short" investment on Monday.

The question isn't whether or not there's going to be a TSLA short squeeze over the next few business days. The question is whether or not this particular short squeeze is going to be significantly bigger than any of the ones that came before it!

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