\n<\/p>\n
For all the headlines about an on-off relationship with Donald Trump, baiting liberals and erratic behaviour, Tesla shareholders are loath to part with Elon Musk.<\/p>\n
Investors in the electric vehicle maker voted on Thursday to put the world\u2019s richest person on the path to become the world\u2019s first trillionaire, despite the controversy that is now seemingly intrinsic to his public profile.<\/p>\n
Shareholders approved the $1tn compensation plan, which could yield the largest corporate payout in history if he meets a series of tough-looking goals, not least pushing Tesla from its current market value of $1.4tn to $8.5tn (\u00a31.06tn to \u00a36.4tn). Musk\u2019s fortune, which includes a stake of about 12.5% in Tesla, is already worth $461bn.<\/p>\n
\u201cMusk is Tesla and Tesla is Musk,\u201d says Dan Ives, a managing director at the US financial firm Wedbush. \u201cDespite some of the brand damage Musk has caused to Tesla during his political stint, the AI future at Tesla depends on Elon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ives is a self-described Tesla \u201ccore bull\u201d who nonetheless has consistently raised concerns about the damage that the chief executive\u2019s political stance has been doing to one of the world\u2019s best-known brands.<\/p>\n
Tesla sales suffered as Musk\u2019s on-off relationship with Trump \u2013 funding his presidential campaign and his stint leading sweeping cuts at the \u201cdepartment of government efficiency\u201d \u2013 damaged the appeal of its vehicles to a left-leaning consumer base.<\/p>\n
There were signs of trouble before that as well, with market research firm Strategic Vision recording a sharp decline in regard for Tesla since Musk bought Twitter (now X) in 2022, rolled back content moderation on the platform and reinstated banned accounts.<\/p>\n
Other off-putting factors have been swirling around the Trump soap opera, such as reports of Musk\u2019s alleged extensive drug consumption, his public support for far-right political parties and making fascist-style salutes at political rallies.<\/p>\n
At one point in March, Ives warned that Tesla and Musk were embroiled in a \u201cbrand tornado crisis moment\u201d as the backlash against the boss\u2019s behaviour became a global problem amid falling sales. Other factors were at play in Tesla\u2019s commercial wobbles, not least stiff competition from Chinese-made vehicles, but Musk\u2019s notoriety has had an impact.<\/p>\n
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Sign up to Business Today<\/span><\/p>\n Get set for the working day \u2013 we’ll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n So why have investors stuck by Musk? Shares in Tesla have risen by nearly two-thirds since May, when the Tesla chief executive announced he was leaving the Trump administration (and then worrying investors by falling out with the president publicly). Third-quarter deliveries \u2013 a proxy for sales \u2013 trounced Wall Street estimates last month thanks to US consumers taking advantage of expiring federal tax credits for electric vehicles, although European sales suffered and analysts warned that Musk needs to cushion a post-credit slowdown by selling cheaper models.<\/p>\n Another factor is the culture among US investors of backing high-flying innovators and entrepreneurs. For instance, Mark Zuckerberg\u2019s control of Meta has not been challenged and Jeff Bezos had a long reign at the top of Amazon before stepping down in 2021. Indeed, most Tesla shareholders seemed concerned that Musk was devoting too little time to the company, instead of wanting him to leave altogether.<\/p>\n \u201cMoney talks in the US more,\u201d says Neil Wilson, an investor strategist at financial trading platform Saxo Markets. \u201cThe US has a far more entrepreneurial, free-wheeling, go-get-\u2019em attitude so they are inclined to let innovators innovate. Plus Musk is a one-off \u2013 without him Tesla would be nowhere.\u201d<\/p>\n Other incentives in Musk\u2019s $1tn pay package include delivering 20m Tesla vehicles, 10m self-driving car subscriptions, 1m humanoid robots and 1m robotaxis. These targets, particularly the robots and autonomous vehicles, require the kind of entrepreneurial and technological chutzpah that Musk has shown at Tesla and his rocket company SpaceX.<\/p>\n Matthias Schmidt, an automotive industry analyst, says the added value Musk has brought to Tesla\u2019s stock is \u201cundeniable\u201d and has made \u201cmany people rich, including himself\u201d.<\/p>\n However, Schmidt adds that Tesla\u2019s core car business has reached its peak and describes the autonomous vehicle plans as \u201ccertainly not the best in the market\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cHave shareholders been naively blind-sided by past achievements rather than the foresight of future prospects? Perhaps!\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Most Tesla investors are willing to bet $1tn otherwise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For all the headlines about an on-off relationship with Donald Trump, baiting liberals and erratic behaviour, Tesla shareholders are loath to part with Elon Musk. Investors in the electric vehicle maker voted on Thursday to put the world\u2019s richest person on the path to become the world\u2019s first trillionaire, despite the controversy that is now<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[18402,91,2004,3106,1371,1040,1381],"class_list":{"0":"post-32559","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-1tn","9":"tag-elon","10":"tag-happy","11":"tag-investors","12":"tag-musk","13":"tag-pay","14":"tag-tesla"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}