Investor's Corner
Tesla’s newest board member Hiromichi Mizuno is a perfect fit in so many ways
Tesla is welcoming Hiromichi Mizuno as the tenth member of its board. Mizuno will serve as a New Independent Director, according to a Tesla blog post from April 23.
Mizuno was most recently the Chief Investment Officer of Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund, a position that he left last month. The fund is recognized as the largest pension fund in the world, with approximately $1.5 trillion in manageable assets. After spending his career in Tokyo, London, New York, Hong Kong, and Silicon Valley, Mizuno has returned to the technology capital of the world to fill roles that will complement his background in international policy.
Mizuno’s background at the Japanese Government Pension Investment Fund included emphasizing the importance of the environment and sustainability. He recognized portfolio planning could also benefit the environment by investing in companies that handled climate issues responsibly.
Welcome @hiromichimizuno to the Tesla board! Honored to have you.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 24, 2020
However, that is not the only way Mizuno seems to line up well with Tesla’s “big picture.” Mizuno is also vocal when talking about short-selling as it pertains to a market practice that takes advantage of a company’s downfall.
“I never met a short seller who has a long-term perspective,” Mizuno said in an interview with Financial Times. He believes short selling is not consistent with the overall philosophy of investing, which consists of supporting companies over an extended period to help establish a group’s long-term value.
This point of view lines up with Elon Musk’s perspective on shorting stocks. Musk has stated in the past that “Short selling should be illegal,” which was a direct response to Mizuno’s quote in the Financial Times interview.
Bravo, right thing to do! Short selling should be illegal.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 3, 2019
Tesla is the most shorted stock in the United States, according to a report from SeekingAlpha, which indicates that 19.7 million of the company’s 184 million shares are “short.” Tesla’s most notable shorts include Jim Chanos of Kynikos and David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital, who has a history of banter with Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk.
Mizuno joins Musk, Robyn Denholm, Ira Ehrenpreis, Larry Ellison, Antonio Gracias, Steve Jurvetson, James Murdoch, Kimbal Musk, and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as board members.
We’ve provided Tesla’s announcement of Hiromichi Mizuno below:
We are pleased to welcome Hiromichi (Hiro) Mizuno to Tesla’s Board of Directors and Audit Committee, effective April 23, 2020.
Hiro’s entire career has been in finance and investment, spanning Tokyo, New York, London, Hong Kong and Silicon Valley. Most recently, Hiro served as Executive Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer of Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund, which is the largest pension fund in the world with approximately $1.5 trillion in assets under management. During his time there, Hiro emphasized the importance of environmental considerations in portfolio management and became a global thought leader in sustainable and responsible investment. He also challenged many established market practices, including short-selling, to promote long-term value creation by corporations.
In addition to his understanding of financial markets and economics, Hiro brings to the Tesla Board an expertise in international policy, as he is member of numerous business and government advisory boards, including the board of the PRI, an investor initiative to promote responsible investment in partnership with the United Nations, the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council, and the Japanese government’s strategic fund integrated advisory board.
We are excited that Hiro has joined our mission to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.
There are a lot of Tesla bulls out there who have astronomical expectations for the company, especially as its arm of reach has gone well past automotive and energy and entered artificial intelligence and robotics.
However, some of the most bullish Tesla investors believe the company could become worth $100 trillion, and CEO Elon Musk does not believe that number is completely out of the question, even if it sounds almost ridiculous.
To put that number into perspective, the top ten most valuable companies in the world — NVIDIA, Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, TSMC, Meta, Saudi Aramco, Broadcom, and Tesla — are worth roughly $26 trillion.
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Cathie Wood of ARK Invest believes the number is reasonable considering Tesla’s long-reaching industry ambitions:
“…in the world of AI, what do you have to have to win? You have to have proprietary data, and think about all the proprietary data he has, different kinds of proprietary data. Tesla, the language of the road; Neuralink, multiomics data; nobody else has that data. X, nobody else has that data either. I could see $100 trillion. I think it’s going to happen because of convergence. I think Tesla is the leading candidate [for $100 trillion] for the reason I just said.”
Musk said late last year that all of his companies seem to be “heading toward convergence,” and it’s started to come to fruition. Tesla invested in xAI, as revealed in its Q4 Earnings Shareholder Deck, and SpaceX recently acquired xAI, marking the first step in the potential for a massive umbrella of companies under Musk’s watch.
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Now that it is happening, it seems Musk is even more enthusiastic about a massive valuation that would swell to nearly four-times the value of the top ten most valuable companies in the world currently, as he said on X, the idea of a $100 trillion valuation is “not impossible.”
It’s not impossible
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 6, 2026
Tesla is not just a car company. With its many projects, including the launch of Robotaxi, the progress of the Optimus robot, and its AI ambitions, it has the potential to continue gaining value at an accelerating rate.
Musk’s comments show his confidence in Tesla’s numerous projects, especially as some begin to mature and some head toward their initial stages.
Elon Musk
Tesla director pay lawsuit sees lawyer fees slashed by $100 million
The ruling leaves the case’s underlying settlement intact while significantly reducing what the plaintiffs’ attorneys will receive.
The Delaware Supreme Court has cut more than $100 million from a legal fee award tied to a shareholder lawsuit challenging compensation paid to Tesla directors between 2017 and 2020.
The ruling leaves the case’s underlying settlement intact while significantly reducing what the plaintiffs’ attorneys will receive.
Delaware Supreme Court trims legal fees
As noted in a Bloomberg Law report, the case targeted pay granted to Tesla directors, including CEO Elon Musk, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, Kimbal Musk, and Rupert Murdoch. The Delaware Chancery Court had awarded $176 million to the plaintiffs. Tesla’s board must also return stock options and forego years worth of pay.
As per Chief Justice Collins J. Seitz Jr. in an opinion for the Delaware Supreme Court’s full five-member panel, however, the decision of the Delaware Chancery Court to award $176 million to a pension fund’s law firm “erred by including in its financial benefit analysis the intrinsic value” of options being returned by Tesla’s board.
The justices then reduced the fee award from $176 million to $70.9 million. “As we measure it, $71 million reflects a reasonable fee for counsel’s efforts and does not result in a windfall,” Chief Justice Seitz wrote.
Other settlement terms still intact
The Supreme Court upheld the settlement itself, which requires Tesla’s board to return stock and options valued at up to $735 million and to forgo three years of additional compensation worth about $184 million.
Tesla argued during oral arguments that a fee award closer to $70 million would be appropriate. Interestingly enough, back in October, Justice Karen L. Valihura noted that the $176 award was $60 million more than the Delaware judiciary’s budget from the previous year. This was quite interesting as the case was “settled midstream.”
The lawsuit was brought by a pension fund on behalf of Tesla shareholders and focused exclusively on director pay during the 2017–2020 period. The case is separate from other high-profile compensation disputes involving Elon Musk.
Investor's Corner
Tesla (TSLA) Q4 and FY 2025 earnings call: The most important points
Executives, including CEO Elon Musk, discussed how the company is positioning itself for growth across vehicles, energy, AI, and robotics despite near-term pressures from tariffs, pricing, and macro conditions.
Tesla’s (NASDAQ:TSLA) Q4 and FY 2025 earnings call highlighted improving margins, record energy performance, expanding autonomy efforts, and a sharp acceleration in AI and robotics investments.
Executives, including CEO Elon Musk, discussed how the company is positioning itself for growth across vehicles, energy, AI, and robotics despite near-term pressures from tariffs, pricing, and macro conditions.
Key takeaways
Tesla reported sequential improvement in automotive gross margins excluding regulatory credits, rising from 15.4% to 17.9%, supported by favorable regional mix effects despite a 16% decline in deliveries. Total gross margin exceeded 20.1%, the highest level in more than two years, even with lower fixed-cost absorption and tariff impacts.
The energy business delivered standout results, with revenue reaching nearly $12.8 billion, up 26.6% year over year. Energy gross profit hit a new quarterly record, driven by strong global demand and high deployments of MegaPack and Powerwall across all regions, as noted in a report from The Motley Fool.
Tesla also stated that paid Full Self-Driving customers have climbed to nearly 1.1 million worldwide, with about 70% having purchased FSD outright. The company has now fully transitioned FSD to a subscription-based sales model, which should create a short-term margin headwind for automotive results.
Free cash flow totaled $1.4 billion for the quarter. Operating expenses rose by $500 million sequentially as well.
Production shifts, robotics, and AI investment
Musk further confirmed that Model S and Model X production is expected to wind down next quarter, and plans are underway to convert Fremont’s S/X line into an Optimus robot factory with a capacity of one million units.
Tesla’s Robotaxi fleet has surpassed 500 vehicles, operating across the Bay Area and Austin, with Musk noting a rapid monthly expansion pace. He also reiterated that CyberCab production is expected to begin in April, following a slow initial S-curve ramp before scaling beyond other vehicle programs.
Looking ahead, Tesla expects its capital expenditures to exceed $20 billion next year, thanks to the company’s operations across its six factories, the expansion of its fleet expansion, and the ramp of its AI compute. Additional investments in AI chips, compute infrastructure, and future in-house semiconductor manufacturing were discussed but are not included in the company’s current CapEx guidance.
More importantly, Tesla ended the year with a larger backlog than in recent years. This is supported by record deliveries in smaller international markets and stronger demand across APAC and EMEA. Energy backlog remains strong globally as well, though Tesla cautioned that margin pressure could emerge from competition, policy uncertainty, and tariffs.
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