Tesla just completed its annual shareholder meeting. Like in meetings past, it was fairly long and covered almost every Tesla topic under the sun. To make it easier for people who couldn’t watch, wouldn’t watch, or simply want to go back to some of the topics in the meeting, below is a timestamped summary from Paul, who kindly stayed up late in Florida (just not as late as me here in Poland) to put this together for the world.
This afternoon at 2:30pm Pacific Standard Time, Tesla will hold its annual shareholder meeting. Expect to hear updates from company leadership, including Elon Musk, on the latest and greatest public-facing data about the company. They typically provide a business update, a look at the financials for the past year, as well as provide a look into the future at what shareholders can expect from the company in the year ahead.
The 20 most popular CleanTechnica articles last week are listed below. First, though, I’ll note some of my personal favorites of the week.
It seems that Tesla has had critics since the day it came out of stealth — or before that. Even CEO and co-founder Elon Musk didn’t expect the company to succeed. He simply poured his money into it on the slim chance that it would succeed, and would thus help … [continued]
Tesla CEO Elon Musk went on the Ride The Lightning podcast with Tesla enthusiast and IGN Executive Editor Ryan McCaffrey for an hour-long interview. Topics ranged from the Tesla Pickup Truck to the Model Y and even delved into the possibility of a Tesla App store in the future. In his talk with McCaffrey, Musk unpacked the top priorities for Tesla over the next few months.
While working on this Tesla flashback regarding Adam Jonas of Morgan Stanley, I had the thought to take a more thorough look at the media outlet that I think most prolifically covers Tesla — CNBC.
Tesla’s stock is tumbling in the largest decline in TSLA history, and the media is in a frenzy. The headlines on Tesla are starting to include the words such as “troubles,” “struggles,” and even “doomed.” The narrative says Tesla’s demand is falling, its balance sheet is in terrible shape, and Tesla will run out of cash in 10 months. The narrative also claims that Tesla will miss expectations in the second quarter, and one analyst says that Tesla might go to $10/share from the current $190, which is already down >50% from the highs. However, the data show that none of that is true. Tesla’s orders are at an all-time high in North America and worldwide, the balance sheet is the strongest it has been in 6 quarters, and the average 12-month price target among analysts is $276/share, or 46% higher than today’s price.
The trading week of May 20–24 was not kind to Tesla. The stock dropped more than 20 points, which translates into a loss of some $3.5 billion in market capitalization. The primary reason for the plunge was investor reactions to a full-court press of negative comments from analysts and the media.
While the financial media and analysts continue to question Tesla’s demand on the basis of one unusually “bad” quarter, quarterly data and internal Tesla emails show worldwide order rates are actually up 25% in Q2 versus Q1. Meanwhile, a crowdsourced Tesla order tracker shows US and Canada Model 3 orders are up 116% versus Q1, and website traffic and interest data show that interest in Tesla’s vehicles is higher than in the past.
Last week, the world that follows Tesla flipped out a bit due to an Elon-to-staff email that got leaked. To be frank, there was nothing especially interesting in the email, which is why we didn’t cover it earlier. However, people keep referencing it in comments, and both the media and Wall Street blew it way the f*** out of proportion, so I’m addressing it this article.
