Elon Musk Threatens to Take Toys and Go Home

In the latest display of childish petulance at the automotive meme that is Tesla, it is being suggested by the company’s chair that Elon Musk could leave the joint if shareholders don’t approve the eye-popping $1 trillion compensation package being requested by Musk.

To bring you up to speed, the proposed pay schedule currently on the table stands to reward Elon with enormous paydays if he manages to meet nearly a dozen different milestones (or “tranches”, if you’re up for learning new words today). The board argues these have very aggressive metrics, while the rest of the world argues no one on the planet needs or deserves to be paid $1 trillion.

In a new letter to shareholders, which itself follows up on a similar letter sent just last week, Robyn Denholm, the chair of Tesla’s board of directors implores shareholders to consider approving the pay package. As part of the pitch, this crowd is hauling out an old threat: if Elon doesn't get what he wants, he’ll act like a sooky baby and leave the company.

“Without Elon, Tesla could lose significant value, as our company may no longer be valued for what we aim to become: a transformative force reimagining the fundamental building blocks …” Actually, you know what? I’m not quoting anything further from such tripe. Denholm goes on to talk about various aspects of the Tesla empire, mentioning things like energy and labor plus the so-called Full Self Driving and Optimus robot efforts.

Some of the milestones are stunning, including 20 million delivered vehicles (it is at an estimated 7.5 mil, currently) with half having FSD installed, a million Robotaxis on the road in commercial operation, and a million ‘Tesla bots’ roaming the land. 

The latter has a broad definition, which is worth mentioning since everyone seems to be focusing on Tesla Optimus and Elon uttering the words “robot army” on the last Tesla earnings call. According to documents, “Bot” means any robot or other physical product with mobility using artificial intelligence manufactured by or on behalf of Tesla, including Optimus, and any other successor, replacement or enhancement to such Bot that substantially performs or provides similar functionality as such robot or other product using artificial intelligence (it being understood that any vehicles shall not be considered Bots). This means Muskrat could theoretically push out 100,000 major updates to just ten Bots and meet the criteria.