Investor's Corner
Over 5.8k Tesla investors representing $4.1 billion are speaking out in support of Elon Musk
Thousands of retail Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) investors have banded together to express their support of CEO Elon Musk’s and his 2018 compensation plan, which was rescinded by a Delaware judge last week. The judge’s decision, which concluded a legal complaint started by a thrash metal drummer with nine Tesla shares, was met with polarizing reactions.
The Tesla investors’ goal was simple. They wanted to specifically affirm their vote of support for Musk’s 2018 compensation plan, whose targets have already been met, and they also requested that the Tesla Board of Directors design a new compensation plan for Musk that could take him back to 25% of the EV maker’s voting shares. The group also expressed their support to the idea of Tesla moving its state of incorporation from Delaware to Texas.
The initiative was admirable. What started as a collaborative effort on social media led by accounts such as Alexandra Merz (@TeslaBoomerMama) and Amy Steffens (@_sftahoe) ballooned to 5,821 Tesla shareholders representing 23,337,127 shares signing a letter addressed to the Tesla Board of Directors in just four days. The Tesla investors’ accumulated shares are substantial, as it corresponds to over $4 billion worth of shares as of Monday’s intraday.
?
Have never heard of a company able to mobilize
– in only 4 short days (including a weekend)
the commitment of
– 5,821 shareholders with
– 23,337,127 shares.
Retail investors showing their deep appreciation of @elonmusk and @Tesla's Board of Directors.
Now Austin bound. pic.twitter.com/s9Nr36Yn5m— Ale?andra Merz (@TeslaBoomerMama) February 5, 2024
The Tesla shareholders’ letter can be viewed below.
Shareholder Letter to Tesla’s Board of Directors
The shareholders (listed in the attachment)
- Support unequivocally that Tesla’s state of incorporation is changed from Delaware to Texas, where Tesla is already headquartered. Tesla staying incorporated in Delaware is untenable if Shareholder Votes will be rescinded.
- Would like the Board to explore options to affirm the shareholder vote in support of keeping the Tesla’s 2018 CEO Compensation Plan active and in place. Tesla shareholders don’t want their votes disenfranchised. Tesla shareholders elected the Tesla Board of Directors and were aware of the Board members’ relationship with Elon Musk. The shareholders chose them. The recent decision by Judge McCormick to rescind the 2018 CEO compensation plan is a dangerous precedent for all shareholders in American corporations.
- Would like the Board to design a new CEO Compensation Plan along the lines of the 2018 Plan. The new Plan tranches will require Tesla to achieve ambitious performance and market cap milestones.
- The performance milestones could include FSD reaching level 5 autonomy, Tesla Energy achieving annual kWh goals, the next generation EV platform reaching volume production, and Optimus in volume production. The market capitalization milestones could reflect each $500 billion- or $1 trillion-dollar increase in Tesla’s overall value, or whatever intermediate milestones make sense, as well as one for surpassing the combined value of Saudi Aramco and Apple. The new Plan’s tranches will vest shares to Mr. Musk in such a way as to ultimately grant him 25+ percent of voting shares. If Tesla incorporates in a State allowing super voting shares, we endorse this, too.
The shareholders filling out this form agree that their name and details will be disclosed to the Board of Directors of Tesla and may become public.
TESLA SHAREHOLDER LETTER:
?Final numbers! ?? over 5800 investors representing over 23,335,217 Million Shares. (Or 4.3 BILLION Dollars of shares at current market value).
?Letter is being mailed to Tesla Corporate Secretary. Final letter & Cover Letter and note re:… https://t.co/57KPRJIYSK pic.twitter.com/g3XQHjBHCK— Amy (@_SFTahoe) February 5, 2024
What is quite remarkable about the Tesla investors’ efforts is the fact that it included shareholders from across the spectrum. As per the group’s letter, the 5,821 Tesla shareholders comprise investors that hold anywhere from one TSLA share to thousands of TSLA shares. They also include investors who have been with the EV maker since 2010 and those who only bought shares last month. Overall, the retail investors’ efforts are quite admirable, and they show that Tesla still has a dedicated following among its shareholders until today.
Don’t hesitate to contact us with news tips. Just send a message to simon@teslarati.com to give us a heads up.
Elon Musk
Tesla Cybercabs narrowly miss deadly Amazon cargo plane crash
An Amazon cargo plane crash near Miami’s airport stopped feet from dozens of Tesla Cybercabs.
An Amazon Prime Air Boeing 767 cargo jet overran the runway at Miami International Airport on Sunday afternoon, killing five people and injuring five more. The jet, operated by North Carolina based carrier 21 Air as Flight 7598, touched down around 2 p.m. after arriving from San Juan, Puerto Rico, then crossed the airport perimeter, plowed across NW 67th Avenue and struck multiple vehicles before catching fire, according to the Associated Press.
Photos and video from the scene show the aircraft’s nose stopped within meters of a fenced staging lot holding dozens of gold painted Tesla Cybercabs, the steering wheel free robotaxi Tesla began putting on public roads in Austin last week. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue has confirmed the plane struck “multiple vehicles” but has not said whether any Cybercabs were among them, and neither Tesla nor airport officials have addressed the fleet directly.
The Cybercabs had not yet entered commercial service in Miami. Tesla’s existing Robotaxi operation there runs on modified Model Y vehicles and has been unsupervised since Ashok Elluswamy confirmed the detail on X in July.
Footage of the plane crash from earlier today | #ONLYinDADE pic.twitter.com/iGoOtnd6cD
— ONLY in DADE (@ONLYinDADE) September 6, 2026
Elon Musk offered the briefest of reactions. Replying to a Zero Hedge post about the Cybercabs sitting so close to the wreckage, he wrote a single word: “Weird.” He has not commented further, and Tesla has not issued a statement.
The timing puts Tesla’s newest vehicle near an unrelated but highly visible tragedy just days after its Austin debut, a launch that had already drawn scrutiny from federal regulators. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an audit how Tesla certified the Cybercab as compliant with federal vehicle safety standards, a process Teslarati covered after the vehicle’s September 3 launch event. That inquiry concerns the car’s lack of a steering wheel and pedals, not the Miami crash.
Investigators from the FAA and NTSB are focused on the plane, not the parking lot beside it. Flight data reviewed by outlets including Simple Flying show the 767 touched down around 170 knots, well above the 135 to 140 knot range typical for the aircraft, though investigators have not determined a cause. Amazon said it is working with authorities and that its priority is the safety of everyone affected.
Whether any Cybercabs were damaged, and what Tesla plans for the fleet parked near one of the country’s busiest airports, remain open questions.
Featured
Tesla Cybercab is coming to Asia this month as US service officially begins
Tesla Asia says Cybercab will be on display in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Beijing and Shanghai this month.
Tesla’s Cybercab is heading to Asia. The official Tesla Asia account posted on X Thursday, inviting Cybercab fans to “Come experience the future of autonomy in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Beijing & Shanghai.” The post went up within hours of Tesla’s own Cybercab milestone in Texas, where the company said Thursday it had begun offering rides in across Austin.
Exact dates and venues for the Asia tour haven’t been released yet, though Tesla Hong Kong replied to the announcement with “Cybercab will be on display in Hong Kong soon,” while Tesla Japan’s response pointed fans to a sign up page for updates. Neither post mentions test rides or a service area, and nothing so far suggests Tesla is launching Robotaxi operations in any of the four cities. Based on how Tesla has run past Cybercab tours, in Europe in late 2024 and at US shopping centers that same December, the Asia stops are almost certainly static displays at Tesla stores or public venues as a means to stimulate buzz for its future driverless ride-hailing service in the big cities.
Cybercab will be on display in Asia this month!
Come experience the future of autonomy in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Beijing & Shanghai. pic.twitter.com/wGmmEastfX— Tesla Asia (@Tesla_Asia) September 4, 2026
The timing lines up with Tesla’s only prior Cybercab appearance in the region, a booth at the China International Import Expo in Shanghai last November, which Teslarati covered at the time. At that event, Tesla’s regional general manager for Shanghai framed the car as evidence of the company’s broader mission, a message Tesla has since formalized in its Master Plan Part IV, which states that “autonomous vehicles have the capacity to dramatically improve the affordability, availability and safety of transportation while reducing pollution, particularly in our increasingly dense global cities.” The same document is where Tesla lays out its “sustainable abundance” framing for Cybercab and Optimus alike, describing the two as the hardware behind an AI driven push to cut the cost of transportation and labor at scale.
Whether Cybercab actually operates as a robotaxi anywhere in Asia remains an open question, considering China has already pushed an autonomous ride-hailing market that’s run on homegrown players like Baidu’s Apollo Go and Pony AI. For now, the four city tour reads as a marketing push timed to Austin’s momentum.
Elon Musk
OpenAI cites distrust of SpaceX in decision to drop Cursor partnership
OpenAI will cut SpaceX-owned Cursor’s model access in November, citing Musk’s history of broken contracts.
OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, announced late Friday that it is ending its partnership with Cursor, cutting off the coding tool’s access to its models on November 12. The move comes two weeks after SpaceX completed its $60 billion acquisition of Cursor’s parent company, Anysphere, folding the popular AI coding assistant into Elon Musk’s growing SpaceXAI division.
In a post on its website, OpenAI said the decision came down to trust, not technology. “We cannot be confident that SpaceX will use our technology within our terms of service, based on our experience with Elon Musk’s companies violating contracts,” the company wrote. OpenAI pointed to two specific incidents: X, now part of SpaceX, allegedly breaking the terms of an existing OpenAI contract after Musk bought Twitter.
That lawsuit is the backdrop for all of this. Musk cofounded OpenAI in 2015, left the board in 2018, and sued Sam Altman and Greg Brockman in 2024, arguing they abandoned the company’s nonprofit mission for profit. A federal jury sided with OpenAI in May, finding Musk waited too long to sue rather than ruling on the merits of his claims. Musk said at the time he would appeal to the Ninth Circuit, calling the outcome a “calendar technicality” rather than a real judgment.
SpaceX’s interest in Cursor predates that verdict by weeks. The company first struck a deal with Cursor in April, securing an option to acquire it for $60 billion or pay $10 billion for joint development work instead. As Teslarati reported at the time, the logic was straightforward: Cursor was paying retail prices to Anthropic and OpenAI, two of its most direct competitors, every time a developer used its product, while SpaceX had idle capacity on its Colossus supercomputer, roughly the equivalent of a million Nvidia H100 GPUs, that Cursor could use to train its own models instead. SpaceX exercised the option in June, days after its own IPO, and the deal closed in mid-August.
Once it closed, Musk moved fast. On an all-hands call with more than 1,000 Cursor employees, he reportedly told staff that SpaceXAI’s Grok was playing catchup in the AI race, unlike Tesla and SpaceX in their own markets, and singled out Anthropic as the company to catch. Cursor CEO Michael Truell now reports directly to Musk inside SpaceXAI.
Losing OpenAI’s models leaves Cursor leaning harder on Anthropic’s Claude, which has its own compute agreement with SpaceX, and on Cursor’s in-house Composer model, the one SpaceX’s compute was supposed to accelerate in the first place. OpenAI framed the November deadline as maximum notice under its contract, and said it wants to “go above and beyond” to help developers through the transition. Whether Anthropic makes the same call is now the open question in AI coding.