2024-06-14 22:51:25
Elon Musk celebrates at Tesla’s annual normal assembly and collects a report bonus. In instances of stagnating electrical automotive gross sales and job cuts, that is downright cynical.
The grand entrance, the frenetic followers – in Elon Musk’s portrayal as an entrepreneur, they’re simply as a lot part of it as product improvements and gross sales figures. Musk proved this as soon as once more at this yr’s Tesla Annual Common Assembly. The compensation package deal of 56 billion US {dollars}, which Musk had accredited on the event, additionally appears spectacular. Tesla is at present scuffling with low demand. As an alternative of extreme compensation, a sure humility can be extra acceptable.
It’s the largest compensation package deal for a corporation boss in US historical past. Or to place it much more clearly: It’s roughly equal to the financial output of Iceland and Malta mixed. As one of many richest folks on this planet, Musk might be richer by an nearly unimaginable quantity. Learn extra concerning the particulars of the package deal right here.
However Musk dances throughout the stage and is applauded. The plan of the previous few months to win sympathy over to his facet with campaigns on social networks and manufacturing unit excursions has succeeded. His thanks solely go to the shareholders and traders. An absurd signal of self-centeredness. Musk had solely introduced in April that he needed to chop the corporate’s workforce by ten p.c worldwide, chopping a complete of 14,000 jobs. 400 jobs are additionally to be minimize on the German web site in Grünheide close to Berlin.
Restructuring just isn’t uncommon per se for a corporation of this dimension. Nonetheless, such a change can’t be defined by extra environment friendly manufacturing processes alone, particularly for the reason that acknowledged aim is additional development.
As an alternative, Musk – regardless of all his bold visions for the longer term – should additionally acknowledge that the marketplace for electrical vehicles is stagnating. And many shoppers are in search of low-cost alternate options, if in any respect, which they’re more and more discovering from Chinese language suppliers because of intensive authorities help. The variety of Teslas delivered within the first quarter of 2024 fell by 9 p.c, and earnings even fell by 55 p.c in comparison with the identical quarter final yr. If issues proceed like this, the corporate might see no or little or no development this yr.
That does not actually sound like a celebration. However Musk is intentionally ignoring vital voices. As a result of even when it did not appear that means on the annual normal assembly, there are some. Not all shareholders agreed. Many main shareholders and a few small traders voted in opposition to his bonus. Musk ignores them and would not need to be slowed down by them any greater than he desires to be slowed down by the judiciary.
After a courtroom on the firm’s present headquarters in Delaware overturned the compensation package deal accredited by shareholders in 2018, Musk is now transferring Tesla’s headquarters to Texas. Native politicians are eagerly awaiting him. The governor writes: “Welcome to a state that has neither an revenue tax nor a company tax.”
For Musk and particularly for Tesla workers, the displayed ignorance of criticism might imply a impolite awakening. As a result of self-praise is one factor, the laborious numbers are one other. And so they clearly present: Tesla shares at the moment are a great distance from their 2021 inventory market peak.