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Tesla Space #87: Elon gets $29B pay package from Tesla
... and all you need to know about Tesla and Elon-related companies this week.
Welcome to the Tesla Space newsletter, our 87th issue.
Here’s what I’ve got for you this week:
Tesla awards Elon an interim $29B pay package;
Lars says Tesla might make a smaller pickup;
Robotaxi service starts in a huge area in California area, but with safety drivers in the driver seat; also expands in Austin;
A new Tesla active aerodynamic system patent;
Tesla ruled partially liable for fatal Autopilot crash, has to pay $329M (but Tesla will appeal);
First Superchargers deployed in India, and Tesla announced Tesla Supercharger Voting winners;
Grok launches Imagine for users to generate images and videos very fast;
…and more, as always. Enjoy!
— Jaan
X OF THE WEEK
Tesla jumps on the Sydney Sweeney jeans trend, calls it Seatney in this (actually old) video:
Here’s our latest Tesla Space video: Neuralink Reveals First Female Patient
We’re going over Neuralink's next two patients revealed, first looks of the likely more affordable Model Y, and where the model might land:
Done with the video? Let’s carry on 👇️
$TSLA
… is down 4.27% in a week (since Tuesday’s close), now at $307.51 per share. This puts Tesla back under the trillion market cap, at $961B.
TESLA NEWS
You know how the judge in Delaware rejected Elon Musk’s $56 billion pay package twice, even after shareholders voted for it to confirm?
Well, Tesla Board has now rewarded CEO Elon Musk with a large restricted stock package, worth about $29 billion — an interim solution which will be forfeited/returned should the original $56B comp package go through.
Here is the full text from Tesla to shareholders about this. Including:
“Tesla is committed to honoring its promises in the 2018 CEO Performance Award and intends to compensate its CEO for his future services commensurate with his contributions to our company and shareholders, we have recommended this award as a first step, ‘good faith’ payment to Elon.”
Here are some details about the award:
96 million restricted shares of stock, subject to Elon paying a purchase price upon meeting a two-year vesting term, to be delivered after receipt of antitrust regulatory approval
The purchase price will be equal to the split-adjusted exercise price of the stock options awarded to Elon under the 2018 CEO Performance Award ($23.34 per share)
A requirement that Elon serve continuously in a senior leadership role at Tesla during the two-year vesting term
A pledging allowance to cover tax payments or the purchase price
A mandatory holding period of five years from the grant date, except to cover tax payments or the purchase price (with any sales for such purposes to be conducted through an orderly disposition in coordination with Tesla); and
If the Delaware courts fully reinstate the 2018 CEO Performance Award, this interim award will be forfeited or returned or a portion of the 2018 CEO Performance Award will be forfeited. To put it simply, there cannot be any “double dip.” Elon will not be able to keep this new award in addition to the options he will be awarded under the 2018 CEO Performance Award, should the courts rule in our favor
The letter also said:
“The Special Committee continues our work to address a longer-term CEO compensation strategy, which we plan to put to a shareholder vote at the November 6 annual meeting.”
This stock award of 96 million shares that Tesla is giving to Elon Musk will bring his total ownership of the company to about 14.6%, up from 12.9% currently (after taxes, which he wouldn't need to pay for a couple of years).
This comes as Musk has said several times, including on the latest Q2 earnings call, that he is concerned about activist shareholders potentially risking the company by taking over if Elon doesn’t hold about 25% of the shares (he currently owns ~12.8% without the comp package included):
“That is a major concern for me, as I’ve mentioned in the past. I hope that is addressed at the upcoming shareholders’ meeting. But, yeah, it is a big deal. I want to find that I’ve got so little control that I can easily be ousted by activist shareholders after having built this army of humanoid robots. I think my control over Tesla, Inc. should be enough to ensure that it goes in a good direction, but not so much control that I can’t be thrown out if I go crazy.”
Elon also clarified that he doesn’t have loans against $TSLA:
“Just fyi I don’t have personal loans at this time against Tesla stock.
Also, the taxes on the options are ~45%, so net gain in voting control is more like 4%.
It is worrying in that I don’t want to build millions of robots and then potentially be ousted by activists and unable to ensure that public safety remains of paramount importance.”
In other news:
Tesla is opening its first showroom and service center in western Massachusetts in Springfield.
Tesla has removed the Model S and Model X Design configurators from European site. It will now bring up available inventory for those two vehicles instead of allowing you to build your own configuration.
I wonder if this is sunsetting the vehicle completely or just considering the refresh of the S/X that took place in the US.
PS! If you enjoy these reports and want to support us, consider becoming a Tesla Space Insider — it will also level up your knowledge in all things Tesla.
VEHICLES:
Gotta catch ‘em all!
Source: @Cybertruck
Is Tesla going to make a smaller pickup?
Lars Moravy, on the X Takeover:
“We always talked about making a smaller pickup. I think in the future, as more and more of the Robotaxi comes into the world, we look at those options and we think about, ‘Okay, that kind of service is useful not just for people, but also for goods. “We’ve definitely been churning in the design studio about what we might do to serve that need, for sure.”
He also mentioned the Roadster:
“Roadster is definitely in development. We did talk about it last Sunday night. We are gearing up for a super cool demo. It’s going to be mind-blowing; We showed Elon some cool demos last week of the tech we’ve been working on, and he got a little excited.”
Tesla is giving Cybertruck owners $300 in Tesla Credits for the cantrail recall. This is to cover the cost of rewrapping the cantrails.
The new Light Sync feature is rolling out now in software update 2025.26+, turns your Tesla into a rave cave (video). To enable → Toybox > Light Sync > Sync Accent Lights w/ Music
A new Tesla active aerodynamic system patent was granted to Tesla, which uses fans and deployable skirts to create downforce at any speed. That might be waht will make the new Roadster go the ~1-sec 0-60 mph launch.
ROBOTAXI, FSD & SOFTWARE
Tesla robotaxi ride-hailing service is now available in California, the San Francisco Bay Area — about 7.7M people live in the geofence area, and it covers a large area from north of the Golden Gate Bridge all the way south of San Jose.
It is again in an invite-only phase so far. Also, currently, Tesla has a safety driver in the driver’s seat, which is why Tesla is calling it a ride-hailing service rather than a Robotaxi service.
But once Tesla gets the appropriate permit, the driver will hop over to the passenger seat to do pretty much the same safety observing job, and then soon enough it’ll be gone from the car completely.
Here’s a comparison between Waymo's service area and Tesla’s:
Per these “Vehicle Operator, Autopilot” job postings from Tesla, it seems that Tesla plans to launch in 9 more cities in 6 states quite soon.
Tesla expanded its robotaxi geofence in Austin (estimated to be around 80 sqmi, it started out at ~20 sqmi) and reportedly is also now expanding the actual vehicles on the road (used to be ~11). Now, the ride prices are no longer fixed. The pricing is reportedly:
• Base rate: $1 (charged on every ride, no matter the distance)
• Every mile traveled is roughly $1 extra (on top of the $1 base rate)
Elon, when someone asked when they could drive playing games instead of watching the road, “Probably 3 to 6 months, depending on regulatory approval in your city and state.”
He has also recently said that he expects half of the US population to have access to Robotaxi by the end of the year.
And about the question on robotaxi coming to Chicago, he gave us a good tidbit:
“Not sure what the status of Illinois is. A pretty good guide is that if Waymo is operating somewhere, then regulations allow robotaxi in that city or state. Tesla will operate there as soon as we reaffirm safety testing in that locale and receive a license to operate.”
A jury has ordered Tesla to pay $329M for a 2019 fatal crash on Autopilot in Key Largo, Florida, for being partially liable. The driver dropped his phone and was fishing for it, taking his attention off Autopilot. Elon says they’ll appeal:
SUPERCHARGING
Tesla opened its first-ever Supercharging station in India yesterday, on August 4th, in India. And they did wrap it as a milestone charger!
 |  |
Tesla also announced the next winners of Supercharging Voting, and launched the next round. Winners:
🇰🇷 Siheung, South Korea | 🇺🇸 Gardiner, MT |
Max de Zegher from Tesla says: “We’re now generating over 1k voting options globally, using direct customer input. Every region has multiple & more granular options. Go vote, so we know the next highest priority locations to build.”
As kind of expected, the Tesla Diner lines are still long. (video)
Regulation changed in Portugal, which allows Tesla to quickly scale up the Supercharging network in the country (was literally blocked for 4.5 years before). 7 new sites opening this year alone.
MUSKONOMY
This was the first Starship to be static fired on the orbital launch mount, which was modified by engineers and technicians at Starbase. Launching mid-August!
SpaceX / Starlink
Starlink released an update to deal with obstructions:
“As a Starlink terminal communicates with satellites overhead, it continuously builds a real-time obstruction map, allowing Starlink to dynamically understand its environment. With this information, it can proactively select the best and most stable connection. For dynamic obstructions, such as are encountered by mobile terminals, the system reactively switches in less than 1/10th of a second, allowing a connection to remain stable. “
Grok launches Imagine for users to generate images and videos.
Elon also says that:
“Grok Imagine is AI Vine! Btw, we recently found the Vine video archive (thought it had been deleted) and are working on restoring user access, so you can post them if you want.”
For some context, Vine, the popular video platform, was acquired by Twitter back in 2012 for $30M, just four months after it was founded.
The video generator is significantly poorer tha,n for exampl,e Veo 3 right now, but I expect xAI to iterate at a quick speed and catch up fast. Elon said:
“Grok Imagine is still early beta and is optimized for maximum fun, so it should be evaluated as “fastest time to make a fun, shareable video”, rather than visual/auditory perfection. Our heavy-duty video model will train on the 110k GB200s coming online next month.”
To be honest, it is indeed crazy how fast the images and videos are generated on the Imagine.
Also, you know how most AI image and video generation tools block you once you go anywhere near the NSFW stuff? Well, Grok (as usual) encourages this, with a special “spicy” setting when generating images. 🤷♂️
I have access to the Imagine by Grok, so if you’ve got a specific prompt you’d like to test out, just send me a message. But please, none of the spicy requests, though.
xAI is donating millions of dollars to help four schools in the Memphis, Tennessee area with years of deferred maintenance. Help ranges from painting of hallways, common areas, and classrooms; windows to football, baseball fields, athletic tracks, indoor courts, technology labs, etc.
Neuralink
Neuralink has launched a clinical study in the UK: "We’re exploring how our brain-computer interface can restore digital autonomy to individuals with severe paralysis by enabling them to control devices with their thoughts."
We’re done for today! We strive to be the most value-packed and concise Tesla-related newsletter out there. How did we do?
FEEDBACK: What do you think of today's issue?(we read every reply you leave after voting!) |
You all left me 66 upvotes and one downvote (which was actually fair tbh). Thank you all, especially the 20 replies you left me! Here are some:
David said:
“This Newsletter is always a great read, and it’s getting better with every letter…but you’ve really gone overboard this time! This one is so full of info that this is the third time I’ve read it. :-) Lots to take in and great letters from the Neuralink folk! Outstanding.”
GSB said:
“More Starship, Neuralink stories, TBC Nashville, Musk Foundation grants! What a time to be alive!”
— Oh yes, I love it when we have enough to share through the whole Muskonomy.
Ivo said:
“Samsung is going to make the AI6 chips, not design.”
— You are right, this was 100% my oversight in wording it and Samsung will be the one to manufacture the chips. I fully deserved the thumbs down on this one.
Edna said:
“Always timely and interesting information. Some almost unbelievable things are happening with Tesla.”
— That’s a good point. We report on all these advancements every week, like it’s all normal. If we dropped into this point in time randomly from just ~10 years ago, all we’ve written about here would indeed seem unbelievable!
See you next week for more,
— Jaan, Ted, and Sean.
PS, we’d like to thank all of our supporters on Patreon.
As a monthly supporter of the channel, you will receive our eternal gratitude and respect, plus a little shoutout at the end of every video and maybe even a few perks if you happen to be particularly generous.
James Russell | Rashid Durham |
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