Investor's Corner
Tesla shareholders to vote on TSLA stock split in annual shareholders meeting
Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) shareholders will be voting on a potential stock split during this year’s annual shareholder meeting. The update was posted by the company through its official Twitter account on Monday.
“Tesla will ask shareholders to vote at this year’s annual meeting to authorize additional shares in order to enable a stock split,” Tesla wrote.
The electric vehicle maker’s announcement appears to have been positively received by its shareholders. Following the announcement, TSLA shares rose over 4% on Monday’s pre-market. This hints that a stock split in the near future may very well be appreciated by Tesla’s investors.
Tesla provided more detail about its planned stock split in a recently-filed 8-K fling. “An 8-K filing from the electric vehicle maker provides additional information about the potential stock split.
“On March 28, 2022, Tesla, Inc. announced its plan to request stockholder approval at the upcoming 2022 Annual Meeting of Stockholders for an increase in the number of authorized shares of common stock through an amendment to the Company’s Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation in order to enable a stock split of the Company’s common stock in the form of a stock dividend. Tesla’s Board of Directors has approved the management proposal, but the stock dividend will be contingent on final Board approval.
“The Company’s definitive proxy statement relating to the Annual Meeting will include additional details regarding the Amendment, as well as the record date, date, and location of the Annual Meeting.”
Tesla’s last stock split was initiated back in August 2020, about one and a half years ago. When the 5-for-1 split was announced, the company’s shares were trading at about $1,373. During the time, the company noted that its stock split will be held to make “stock ownership more accessible to employees and investors.”
Tesla trades at about $1,000 per share today, which is still quite reasonable considering the company’s product roadmap and potential. However, initiating another stock split later this year would allow more investors to buy into the company at a lower price.
It is quite interesting to see Tesla announce a vote for a potential stock split for the 2022 annual shareholder meeting, however. Tesla is just finishing the first quarter of 2022, but the company typically schedules its annual shareholder meeting in the latter half of the year. From 2017 to 2019, for example, the meetings were held in June. In 2020, the meeting was held in September, and last year, it was held way later in October.
There are various reasons behind a company’s stock split. Apart from lowering the entry point for investors, a stock split also helps a company get included in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Inclusion into the Dow supports the value of a stock, especially since numerous investment firms track the index. Companies that are included in it, therefore, typically see high demand.
Tesla is already a pretty high-demand stock even in its current form. With the company being the undisputed giant of the electric vehicle sector, and with the auto industry shifting to electric transportation, Tesla is carrying a lot of momentum. Elon Musk’s open communication with owners and shareholders on Twitter also gives the company an edge against rivals in the auto sector.
tsla-8k_20220328-gen by Simon Alvarez on Scribd
Don’t hesitate to contact us with news tips. Just send a message to simon@teslarati.com to give us a heads up.
Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) closed at an all-time high on Tuesday, jumping over 3 percent during the day and finishing at $489.88.
The price beats the previous record close, which was $479.86.
Shares have had a crazy year, dipping more than 40 percent from the start of the year. The stock then started to recover once again around late April, when its price started to climb back up from the low $200 level.
This week, Tesla started to climb toward its highest levels ever, as it was revealed on Sunday that the company was testing driverless Robotaxis in Austin. The spike in value pushed the company’s valuation to $1.63 trillion.
Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing
It is the seventh-most valuable company on the market currently, trailing Nvidia, Apple, Alphabet (Google), Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta.
Shares closed up $14.57 today, up over 3 percent.
The stock has gone through a lot this year, as previously mentioned. Shares tumbled in Q1 due to CEO Elon Musk’s involvement with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which pulled his attention away from his companies and left a major overhang on their valuations.
However, things started to rebound halfway through the year, and as the government started to phase out the $7,500 tax credit, demand spiked as consumers tried to take advantage of it.
Q3 deliveries were the highest in company history, and Tesla responded to the loss of the tax credit with the launch of the Model 3 and Model Y Standard.
Additionally, analysts have announced high expectations this week for the company on Wall Street as Robotaxi continues to be the focus. With autonomy within Tesla’s sights, things are moving in the direction of Robotaxi being a major catalyst for growth on the Street in the coming year.
Elon Musk
Tesla needs to come through on this one Robotaxi metric, analyst says
“We think the key focus from here will be how fast Tesla can scale driverless operations (including if Tesla’s approach to software/hardware allows it to scale significantly faster than competitors, as the company has argued), and on profitability.”
Tesla needs to come through on this one Robotaxi metric, Mark Delaney of Goldman Sachs says.
Tesla is in the process of rolling out its Robotaxi platform to areas outside of Austin and the California Bay Area. It has plans to launch in five additional cities, including Houston, Dallas, Miami, Las Vegas, and Phoenix.
However, the company’s expansion is not what the focus needs to be, according to Delaney. It’s the speed of deployment.
The analyst said:
“We think the key focus from here will be how fast Tesla can scale driverless operations (including if Tesla’s approach to software/hardware allows it to scale significantly faster than competitors, as the company has argued), and on profitability.”
Profitability will come as the Robotaxi fleet expands. Making that money will be dependent on when Tesla can initiate rides in more areas, giving more customers access to the program.
There are some additional things that the company needs to make happen ahead of the major Robotaxi expansion, one of those things is launching driverless rides in Austin, the first city in which it launched the program.
This week, Tesla started testing driverless Robotaxi rides in Austin, as two different Model Y units were spotted with no occupants, a huge step in the company’s plans for the ride-sharing platform.
Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing
CEO Elon Musk has been hoping to remove Safety Monitors from Robotaxis in Austin for several months, first mentioning the plan to have them out by the end of 2025 in September. He confirmed on Sunday that Tesla had officially removed vehicle occupants and started testing truly unsupervised rides.
Although Safety Monitors in Austin have been sitting in the passenger’s seat, they have still had the ability to override things in case of an emergency. After all, the ultimate goal was safety and avoiding any accidents or injuries.
Goldman Sachs reiterated its ‘Neutral’ rating and its $400 price target. Delaney said, “Tesla is making progress with its autonomous technology,” and recent developments make it evident that this is true.
Investor's Corner
Tesla gets bold Robotaxi prediction from Wall Street firm
Last week, Andrew Percoco took over Tesla analysis for Morgan Stanley from Adam Jonas, who covered the stock for years. Percoco seems to be less optimistic and bullish on Tesla shares, while still being fair and balanced in his analysis.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) received a bold Robotaxi prediction from Morgan Stanley, which anticipates a dramatic increase in the size of the company’s autonomous ride-hailing suite in the coming years.
Last week, Andrew Percoco took over Tesla analysis for Morgan Stanley from Adam Jonas, who covered the stock for years. Percoco seems to be less optimistic and bullish on Tesla shares, while still being fair and balanced in his analysis.
Percoco dug into the Robotaxi fleet and its expansion in the coming years in his latest note, released on Tuesday. The firm expects Tesla to increase the Robotaxi fleet size to 1,000 vehicles in 2026. However, that’s small-scale compared to what they expect from Tesla in a decade.
Tesla expands Robotaxi app access once again, this time on a global scale
By 2035, Morgan Stanley believes there will be one million Robotaxis on the road across multiple cities, a major jump and a considerable fleet size. We assume this means the fleet of vehicles Tesla will operate internally, and not including passenger-owned vehicles that could be added through software updates.
He also listed three specific catalysts that investors should pay attention to, as these will represent the company being on track to achieve its Robotaxi dreams:
- Opening Robotaxi to the public without a Safety Monitor. Timing is unclear, but it appears that Tesla is getting closer by the day.
- Improvement in safety metrics without the Safety Monitor. Tesla’s ability to improve its safety metrics as it scales miles driven without the Safety Monitor is imperative as it looks to scale in new states and cities in 2026.
- Cybercab start of production, targeted for April 2026. Tesla’s Cybercab is a purpose-built vehicle (no steering wheel or pedals, only two seats) that is expected to be produced through its state-of-the-art unboxed manufacturing process, offering further cost reductions and thus accelerating adoption over time.
Robotaxi stands to be one of Tesla’s most significant revenue contributors, especially as the company plans to continue expanding its ride-hailing service across the world in the coming years.
Its current deployment strategy is controlled and conservative to avoid any drastic and potentially program-ruining incidents.
So far, the program, which is active in Austin and the California Bay Area, has been widely successful.
Tesla stock closes at all-time high on heels of Robotaxi progress
Tesla needs to come through on this one Robotaxi metric, analyst says
