Investor's Corner
Tesla shareholders are taking a stand against law firm’s $6B TSLA stock request
Is the law firm behind the legal complaint that ultimately rescinded Elon Musk’s 2018 pay package looking to get overpaid? A growing number of Tesla shareholders say so. This is highlighted in a grassroots effort from Tesla stockholders who are currently using their voices to ask Delaware Judge Kathaleen McCormick to deny the request of law firm Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann, which is demanding a compensation of nearly $6 billion for their services in the case against Musk.
Elon Musk’s 2018 pay package was rescinded by Judge McCormick in late January. The case was filed by a thrash metal drummer and car enthusiast, Richard Tornetta, who held nine TSLA shares when the legal complaint was filed. In a brief, the lawyers noted that they should be compensated in the form of 29 million TSLA shares. The block of TSLA stock would be worth nearly $6 billion, which would translate to an hourly rate of about $288,888.
#DelawareCourt81
letter sent in support of giving the plaintiff's attorneys the reward they deserve: 9 shares. pic.twitter.com/cGWHx5Xxym— James Moore (@russellisright) March 5, 2024
“Plaintiff’s Counsel instead seeks a fee award in kind—a percentage of the shares returned for unrestricted use by Tesla (rather than cash). In other words, we are prepared to ‘eat our cooking.’ This structure has the benefit of linking the award directly to the benefit created and avoids taking even one cent from the Tesla balance sheet to pay fees. It is also tax-deductible by Tesla,” the lawyers wrote in a brief.
#DelawareCourt81
Fullfilled my duty from EUROPE as well ? pic.twitter.com/0fATjfdnvF— SeefyCar (@SeefyCar) March 6, 2024
Elon Musk has responded to the Delaware court’s decision on X, stating that the idea of paying the lawyers behind the case nearly $6 billion in TSLA stock was “criminal.” Musk’s sentiments are understandable, especially since the vast majority of TSLA shareholders did approve his 2018 compensation plan. A number of these shareholders have now decided to make their voices known by sending letters to Judge McCormick explaining that they do not just support Musk’s 2018 pay package — they are also against the idea of paying Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann nearly $6 billion in TSLA stock.
??#DelawareCourt81 pic.twitter.com/yy8WqewatA— Ale?andra Merz (@TeslaBoomerMama) March 6, 2024
The TSLA shareholders have selected the hashtag #DelawareCourt81 for their movement. A look at the hashtag on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, shows that retail shareholders from all walks of life are now sending letters to Judge McCormick. Some have even sent letters from abroad. Others shared personal stories about how their retirement is tied to TSLA stock, and how a $6 billion TSLA share grant to Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann would cause them great financial harm.
Ready to ? in the morning. This letter to the Delaware judge highlights these 4 points:#DelawareCourt81
1️⃣ The excessive $6 BILLION in attorney fees lacks transparency and does not benefit shareholders.
2️⃣ The invalidation of Elon Musk’s 2018 pay package is not based on a… pic.twitter.com/3I5Xeq7bDc— Gail Alfar (@GailAlfarATX) March 5, 2024
It remains to be seen if the Tesla shareholders’ efforts would affect Judge McCormick’s final rulings on the matter. But regardless of the Delaware Judge’s decision, the efforts undertaken by the Tesla shareholders deserve a notable amount of praise. Elon Musk seems to appreciate the shareholders’ efforts, at least, as the CEO expressed his thanks in a reply to a shareholder’s post about the initiative.
Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann’s brief about its request for compensation can be viewed below.
March 1, 2024 – Fee Brief as Filed_Tesla by Simon Alvarez on Scribd
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Elon Musk
Tesla AI boss reveals how big Optimus is going to get
Tesla’s Optimus chief corrected himself on X, confirming a staggering 10 million robot production target.
Tesla’s Optimus program has a new number attached to it, after Ashok Elluswamy, the executive who has run the humanoid robot program since June 2025, posted a three word correction on X Thursday, “Correction, 10 million robots.”
The line clarifies the long term annual capacity Tesla is building toward its planned second Optimus production line at Gigafactory Texas, a figure Musk has cited repeatedly since last year’s shareholder meeting.
The scale is worth noting, because ten million robots a year would mean Tesla building more units annually than most countries sell in new cars. Tesla has framed this as a second line, not the first. The buildout is happening in two phases: a roughly one million unit per year line inside Tesla’s Fremont factory, installed on the floor space vacated when Model S and Model X production ended earlier this year, and a much larger dedicated facility under construction at Giga Texas that broke ground on its first steel structure in May. That Texas facility is the one Elluswamy’s correction refers to, and is expected to reach volume production sometime in 2027.
Correction, 10 million robots https://t.co/0z4nyQNTzp
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) July 30, 2026
Tesla Optimus project fires up as Musk sees production line progress
Elluswamy took over Optimus from Milan Kovac last summer and has spent the months since talking up the program’s trajectory. Elon Musk has also floated the ten million figure at Tesla’s 2025 shareholder meeting.
Ending Model S and Model X production to make room for the first Optimus line was one of the more consequential manufacturing decisions in the company’s recent history, retiring two flagship vehicles in favor of a robot that has yet to enter mass production. Musk has previously estimated per unit production costs at $20,000 to $25,000 once Tesla reaches a million units a year, though he hasn’t said what that cost looks like at ten times the volume.
Elon Musk
SpaceX scores another massive Pentagon deal to support military satellites
SpaceX just picked up another $1.6 billion from the Pentagon, with the U.S. Space Force awarding two task orders worth $1.6 billion to fly 18 Falcon 9 missions from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California through the end of 2027. The launches will carry satellites for the Space Based Sensing and Targeting portfolio, a set of programs meant to help the military detect and track airborne threats and relay that information across forces in near real time.
The award falls under National Security Space Launch Phase 3 Lane 1, the Space Force’s faster, commercial style procurement track for missions that do not require the military’s most demanding certification process. It is also the largest single order publicly disclosed under that program so far, and the first task order issued since the Space Force nearly tripled Lane 1’s contract ceiling from $5.6 billion to $17 billion on July 17.
SpaceX to become America’s Military data backbone for missiles, drones, and warfighters
Eric Zarybnisky, the Space Force’s acting portfolio acquisition executive for space access, said the entire process, from identifying the requirement to signing the contract, took about two months, including a month set aside for companies to prepare proposals.
SpaceX is not just launching these satellites. It already holds the contracts to build two of the programs within the same portfolio, $4.16 billion for the Space Based Airborne Moving Target Indicator system and $2.29 billion for the Space Data Network Backbone, which Teslarati covered in May. That means SpaceX is now responsible for both building key pieces of the military’s next generation sensing network and getting them into orbit.
With this latest award, SpaceX’s Pentagon contract total for 2026 alone tops $8 billion, adding to a defense portfolio that already includes the Golden Dome missile defense software group SpaceX joined in April and a string of GPS launches it inherited after ULA’s Vulcan rocket ran into a booster anomaly, which we detailed in March.
Lane 1’s vendor pool technically includes seven companies: SpaceX, ULA, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, Stoke Space, Impulse Space, and Relativity Space. In practice, SpaceX remains the only provider with the combination of launch cadence, flight proven Falcon 9 hardware, and West Coast infrastructure to support a campaign requiring roughly one Vandenberg launch a month for the next year and a half.
Some lawmakers have flagged the growing concentration of national security launches with one company as a risk worth watching. For now, the Space Force keeps backing SpaceX, with it being the company that shows up ready to launch.
Investor's Corner
SpaceX gets an absolutely crazy price target after rough IPO
SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) got an absolutely crazy price target rating from Raymond James after the company experienced a tough first few weeks following its Initial Public Offering (IPO).
Despite the tumultuous start, SpaceX has plenty of believers, and the company’s massively successful Starship launch last Friday, its 13th test flight of the massive rocket, went so smoothly that Raymond James analysts pushed its price target on the company to roughly 7 times its current trading level.
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
The firm officially put a “Strong Buy” rating and an $800 price target on the stock. It currently trades at around $113. Its all-time high is $225.64, reaching this trading level shortly after shares first went public.
Raymond James’ price target is tied to the firm’s confidence after Starship’s 13th test flight. Analysts at the firm said it was an incremental step that reduces engineering risks, citing the widely successful heat shield test that CEO Elon Musk recently detailed, the smooth deployment of Starlink V3 satellites, and a successful in-space engine relight.
SpaceX also managed to see Starship splash down safely in the Indian Ocean, while the Super Heavy Booster fell down to the Gulf of America with no incidents.
It is interesting to see these launches have such a tremendous impact on the stock and what investors think of it. After SpaceX initially delayed the Starship launch last week, shares fell tremendously. Most probably did not realize that the stand-down is a standard practice, especially if everything is not perfect.
The mission was initially aborted due to an issue with Raptor engines. This was resolved, and Starship launched last Friday after another delay on Thursday, which was caused by weather.
Now that analysts have seen what SpaceX launches are capable of and how impressive the feat is, firms are adjusting their price targets accordingly, making it known that they have high expectations for the space exploration company.

