No. of Recommendations: 14
Hello DTB,
> should we take our chances on having someone else in charge > It's actually not hard to accept a little extravagance if you think of it that way 1. Why not pay him ten trillion, in return for making the value of Tesla into a thousand trillion company thanks to Musk Magic?
Is there any upper or lower limit to this kind of thinking, where the numbers become more or less believable to Tesla investors?
2. What happens if the company lucks out because of the hard work of the staff, not because of Musk in any way whatsoever? What if he literally just takes a 10 year siesta and by random chance, wins the bet? What if he actively makes things worse by being there, but an engineer lucks out and delivers 'Musk's promises' despite his negative impact?
Is that outcome really worth paying a trillion to Musk?
3. What happens if some other small company solves the problems of e.g. walking household robots, flying cars, inflatable AI chainsaws or whatever, and Musk simply issues equity (from himself, if needed, based on his now-easy-to-unlock trillion), buys them up, and claims 'mission accomplished'?
Is that outcome really worth paying a trillion to Musk?
4.
"should we take our chances on having someone else in charge" Well, every other company is 'taking that chance' every day without any problems, and it's not really 'taking a chance', as you're already losing the bet.
I mean, consider, Musk has failed to produce quite a lot of what he promised.
There aren't many CEOs in the world where magazines write articles about how many promises and commitments they've broken.
https://www.wired.com/story/theres-a-very-simple-p...So I would say, yes, maybe Tesla investors should try 'taking a chance'.
After all, a different CEO works for every other company in the world pretty well.
5. Consider: if the success of Tesla is so extremely, specifically dependent on Mr Musk that it's worth giving him 75% of all the current equity just to run the company for a while... and if he's so unmotivated in the job currently that it would take a trillion dollars to persuade him to continue to show up for a few more years....
Then maybe investors should weigh up the risk his plane randomly crashes, or he randomly has a massive heart attack or stroke, or develops mental illness or physical illness rendering him unable to work, or that he might be imprisoned for some crime, or that he simply walks away for personal reasons or boredom, etc. A human is not an invincible, immortal engine.
How much of Tesla's current valuation is being supported by the physical and mental wellbeing of a single human and their current lack of calamity in life?
6. Consider: If Musk is genuinely worth well over $1 trillion in terms of the value he adds as CEO, why do you think other companies aren't rushing to offer him $1.1 trillion to run their company instead? I mean, surely China could come up with $2 trillion, scale up his efforts with national resources, and get even better results? Why aren't they doing that?
At some point, you surely have to consider whether shareholder views about Tesla and Musk resemble religious beliefs more than they resemble genuine speculative investment.
TRS
