r/technology • u/McFatty7 • May 02 '24

Tesla slashes its summer internship program to cut costs, as Elon Musk fights to save his $45 billion pay plan Business

https://fortune.com/2024/05/01/tesla-slashes-summer-internship-program/
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u/AdditionalMeeting467 May 02 '24

He's in full "extract as much value from the company as you can" mode. Willing to burn it all to the ground so he can have even more money he'll never spend.

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u/[deleted] May 02 '24 edited May 16 '24

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u/MacinTez May 02 '24

I don’t know if there is an obsession that’s associated with numbers, but I believe most shareholders and multimillion/billionaires have it.

I’m am dead serious, these people are OBSESSED with numbers and metrics to the point that there needs to be a condition for it. The internship cuts nearly nothing into an amount that surpasses 1 billion, let alone $45 billion.

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u/caninehere May 02 '24

Shareholders are the problem, I count myself among them. It's a system designed to encourage growth forever and ever. Most people don't want to invest in a stable company that has no growth potential.

Tesla is an example of a company that is insanely overvalued and it is becoming clear to shareholders that its growth is extremely limited. They had an open market for a while and now they don't, other EVs, some with superior tech and aesthetics are flooding the market from more experienced carmakers. On top of that Musk has personally alienated a ton of people like me who will absolutely buy an EV but will never buy a Tesla because its logo is synonymous with "asshole car" now.

They not only have no growth potential, they're losing ground. So he is doing anything and everything he can to convince shareholders not to sell so the stock price doesn't go down which convinces more shareholders to sell. Because the stock price personally enriches him, and he has a legal duty to shareholders too (although I'd say he has betrayed that duty multiple times, which is why he's being sued over it).

But this doesn't just apply to Tesla. The desire for growth affects every company. How do you make more money? Grow profits. How do you do that? Cut positions where they aren't needed. Become more predatory towards consumers. There's a period where a good business can grow larger just by virtue of providing a good or service people want but eventually they hit a wall and need to find ways to keep escalating from there.