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Tesla shareholders are taking a stand against law firm’s $6B TSLA stock request

Credit: Andrea Conway/X

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Is the law firm behind the legal complaint that ultimately rescinded Elon Musk’s 2018 pay package looking to get overpaid?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Elon Musk’s 2018 pay package was rescinded by Judge McCormick in late January.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. 

“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

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. 

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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. 

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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Simon is an experienced automotive reporter with a passion for electric cars and clean energy. Fascinated by the world envisioned by Elon Musk, he hopes to make it to Mars (at least as a tourist) someday. For stories or tips--or even to just say a simple hello--send a message to his email, simon@teslarati.com or his handle on X, @ResidentSponge.

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Investor's Corner

Tesla crushes Wall Street expectations, beats delivery estimates by over 15 percent

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Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) beat Wall Street expectations of 406,000 vehicles delivered in Q2 by reporting 480,126 deliveries for the three months ending in June.

Tesla reported it delivered 467,762  Model 3 and Model Y units, while 12,364 Model S, Model X, and Cybertrucks switched hands during the quarter. The Model S and Model X were officially sunset this past quarter and will no longer be part of the company’s Production & Delivery reports moving forward.

The quarter is a pleasant surprise and a good rebound from Q1, when Tesla slightly missed the Wall Street consensus of 365,645 cars by reporting 358,023 deliveries for the first three motnhs of the year.

Energy storage deployments also provided some strength in Tesla’s delivery report, hitting 13.5 GWh for Q2. This is a particular division of Tesla’s business that has been overwhelmingly robust over the past few years, truly being a strong point of the company’s overall model.

For the year, Tesla analysts still predict deliveries to trend in the 1.69 million unit region, a modest 3 to 5 percent increase from the 1.64 million cars the company delivered last year. Tesla will likely return to more sequential and noticeable year-over-year growth as the Cybercab project starts to ramp up considerably in the next few years.

Tesla has some other potential catalysts to spur vehicle deliveries, too. Not only is it expecting Cybercab to truly start making a change in the next few years, but other vehicles could be entering the company’s lineup.

Tesla sends production Cybercab with no steering wheel, pedals to on-road testing

The slightly longer Model Y L has been a highly speculated release candidate in the U.S. It has already done incredibly well in China, and U.S. buyers have been wanting slightly more interior space than the Model Y. Now that the Model X is gone, it is more needed than ever.

Q2 highlights a pretty stable automotive division within Tesla, and no true concerns arise from these figures, especially considering it managed to beat expectations convincingly.

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Tesla gets its latest short from Michael Burry: ‘Happy it jumped back to this level’

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Credit: MarcoRP | X

Tesla short seller Michael Burry, the subject of the film “The Big Short,” where he was portrayed by Steve Carell, has revealed he has opened a new bet against the stock.

In a new update to his Substack newsletter in a post titled “Trading Post June 30, 2026,” Burry revealed a new set of bets against Tesla, Caterpillar, NVIDIA, Applied Materials Inc., and the iShares Semiconductor ETF.

In regard to Tesla, Burry wrote:

“And finally I shorted Tesla at 416.22. Happy it jumped back to this level.”

This means Burry likely opened his new short position after the company’s recent rally on Wall Street, which saw Tesla shares sink in mid-May, only to recover to well over the $400 mark. Currently, shares trade at around $427.

The company saw a big Tuesday as shares climbed considerably, over 10 percent. The size of the Tesla short was not provided, nor did Burry give any information on the position’s structure, the number of shares, dollar value, or whether options were used in the short.

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Over the years, Burry has been one of the more vocal critics of Tesla, calling its share price “media inflated,” and saying it was “ridiculously overvalued” as recently as December.

The company has largely transitioned away from being known as an automotive company and instead is much more widely regarded as an AI play, mostly due to its Full Self-Driving efforts, Optimus robot development, and data collection related to both.

This has not pulled those skeptics away from being vocal about their distaste for how Tesla is valued, but there’s no denying that the company is a global force in many things, including sustainable energy, automotive, and AI.

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SpaceX gets initial stock coverage from Tesla’s biggest bull

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SpaceX Starship V3 flight 12
SpaceX Starship V3 flight 12 (Credit: SpaceX)

Wedbush Securities is initiating stock coverage on SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX), marking the first comments on the company since it went public several weeks ago. Wedbush and its analyst handling coverage, Dan Ives, are widely bullish on fellow Musk company Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA).

Ives wrote his first note initiating coverage of SpaceX shares on Wednesday with a $190 price target and an ‘Outperform’ rating. The firm believes the company is well positioned off of its IPO because of its wide array of projects, including AI compute power and infrastructure, connectivity projects, and launches.

“We view SpaceX as one of the most differentiated assets within the tech market with a strong footprint across its three core markets, with Starlink driving success with connectivity,” Ives wrote, “Starship launches leading to a demand flywheel and increasing deal flow for its Colossus clusters.”

Elon Musk called it Epic: The full story of SpaceX’s Starship Flight 12

Wedbush leans heavily on Starlink, which they say is the “profitability driver given the strength of its recurring revenue base of ~12 million subscribers as of June 5th.” Ives believes Starlink is still in the “early innings” of penetrating the global telecommunications and broadband market, as it only holds less than a 1 percent share. However, this number is sure to increase over time.

It also highlights the importance of Starship, which it says is an “essential layer” of SpaceX’s overall success. SpaceX developing and displaying the ability to reuse rockets is a major cost and reliability advantage “as it reduces the necessary hardware launch costs while generating a feedback loop for future flights to improve their launch flight rate without accelerating capex spend.”

Finally, SpaceX’s recent AI/Compute projects are also very elementary, Ives writes. It is worth mentioning Wedbush said its $190 price target is derived from a valuation forecast that sees the company yielding roughly $2.48 trillion of implied enterprise value.

There are also some factors that Wedbush did not take into account with its initial coverage. The firm wrote in the note:

“We note that there is optional value coming from Starship’s accelerating scale towards sub-$200/kg unit economics, orbital data centers, and enterprise AI monetization as these factors could drive meaningful upside but these face major hurdles, so we do not take that into account with our valuation.”

SpaceX shares are down just over 2 percent today, trading at around $167 at the time of publication.

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