That’s Trillion With A “T”

This newsletter is sponsored by:

If you’re already the richest man in the world, what gets you so jacked, so enthused that you stop trying to figure out how much ketamine is too much ketamine and put your katana back down on your coffee table long enough to go to work?

Tesla’s board thinks they have found the answer.

They lobbed the biggest incentive package in corporate history: a “super-ambitious” $1 trillion pay plan at Elon.

Yes, that’s trillion with a “T.”

If you’re Mary Barra or Jim Farley, you’re probably baffled by Tesla headlines on the regular. But this has got to be distracting news if you’re the CEO of an automotive OEM whose name doesn’t start with a “T” and end with an “esla”. You’re asking yourself, “Where my trillions at?”

But before you picture the Tesla board backing up a starship-sized (exploding) dump truck full of cash for the man, the details in the fine print are of consequence.

According to the SEC filing, the package is structured as 12 tranches of stock grants.

Elon only earns them if Tesla hops through an extraordinarily ambitious set of hurdles.

The ladder starts with a target to nearly double the company’s market cap to $2 trillion, then aspires to push it to an absurd $8.5 trillion. This is paired with “plaid mode” inspired sales targets, including a goal of delivering 20 million cars, 10 million paid Full Self-Driving subscriptions, 1 million humanoid robots, and 1 million driverless robotaxis in service.

That’s a lot of robots.

Especially considering that Tesla hasn’t sold a single Optimus yet.

The Cybertruck was an unequivocal flop.

Tesla’s vehicle sales have been sucking and blowing at the same time for a while now.

The company reported that Q2 revenue was down 12% year over year. Tesla’s largest quarterly revenue drop in over a decade.

Elon’s gonna find himself sleeping on the tent-roofed factory floor again if he’s not careful.

The final two tranches in the package require Elon to help the board draft a CEO succession plan. A plan, depending on how he proposes they structure it, that could allow Elon to continue influencing the company from the sidelines even after he steps down.

Tesla’s move comes after a Delaware judge voided Elon’s 2018 $56 billion plan due to governance concerns. If you recall, the company subsequently reincorporated in Texas, whose corporate law makes shareholder lawsuits more difficult.

Under Texas’s new corporate statute (tailored explicitly for Tesla), Elon can vote in favour of his own pay package. This is essentially a “corporate sanctuary” engineered around a single CEO whose 15% stake in the company can help sway things in Elon’s own way.

He doesn’t just get a shot at a trillion bucks, he gets to help issue, vote, and count the ballots that decide if he gets it.

An interim award filing hands him 96M restricted shares over two years in case shareholders balk in November.

This isn’t really a pay package.

It’s a strategic corporate marriage that attaches Elon to Tesla for a decade.

That would be Elon’s fourth marriage (if we’re counting).

It repositions Tesla’s vision toward AI and robotics, and dilutes shareholders only if these truly impossible targets are blown out of the sky.

Elegant alignment? Maybe.

Elon has a history of setting ambitious goals that he never achieves.

If Elon actually clears these hurdles, he could control nearly a third of Tesla, unencumbered by board interference, at a time in the future when it could be worth trillions.

Investors aren’t betting on Tesla cars anymore; they’re betting on Elon’s AI-slop-sounding master plan to transform Tesla into an AI and robotics powerhouse that enables agentic machines to operate in the physical world.

Changan has officially unveiled its Nevo A06 sedan, which will be available in both BEV and EREV variants. carnewschina.com

Chery’s QQ3 hatchback is a unique design aimed right at the new market of subcompact Chinese hatchbacks. insideevs.com

‘It’s Europe vs China’ as Chinese brands crowd Munich car show. reuters.com

CATL sold its 20.6% stake in Finnish car maker Valmet Automotive to the Finnish state and another shareholder. reuters.com

BYD has slashed its sales target for this year by as much as 16% to 4.6 million vehicles. reuters.com

The NexLawn Master X Series Concept robot lawnmower is designed to pick fruit and throw a ball to your dog. theverge.com

Dyson has announced its Spot+Scrub AI robot vacuum, which is set to go on sale in 2026. techradar.com

Eufy’s Marswalker vacuum is the first genuine stair-climbing robot that lets other bots hitch a ride. cnet.com

A trio of Kiwibots, autonomous wheeled robots, helps students find their footing on campus at UBC. cbc.ca

Google DeepMind Robotics, Intrinsic, and University College London are collaborating on an AI model that utilizes reinforcement learning and graph neural networks to generate collision-free motion plans for multiple robots operating in shared industrial workspaces. therobotreport.com, science.org

Military robot wolves made a cameo at China’s military parade. theguardian.com

German researchers have developed a decorative solar film suitable for exterior building facades, which delivers energy production around 80% of the efficiency of regular solar panels. fraunhofer.de

MIT researchers designed an electrolyte that can break apart at the end of a battery’s life, allowing for easier recycling of components. news.mit.edu

The UK’s largest energy supplier, Octopus Energy, is launching its own EV charger. theverge.com

Enbridge is going ahead with a pair of natural gas transmission pipeline projects. theglobeandmail.com

Drivers spend most of their income on gas in these US states. autoblog.com

BMW showed off the “Neue Klasse” BMW iX3, the company’s first EV built on an 800-volt architecture, which enables charging speeds of up to 400kW, adding as much as 230 miles of range in just 10 minutes. theverge.com, arstechnica.com

BMW partnered with Qualcomm to enable hands-free driving capabilities in the iX3. qualcomm.com

Porsche EV owners get Tesla Supercharger access. caranddriver.com

Porsche’s next Cayenne is fully electric. arstechnica.com

Mercedes-Benz confirmed that the G-class lineup is expanding to include a new cabriolet. caranddriver.com

Audi unveiled its Concept C, a stylish, minimalist sports car that defines a new styling philosophy. arstechnica.com

Honda is reviving the Prelude as a technology-packed machine combining Type-R handling with hybrid efficiency. theverge.com, autoblog.com, arstechnica.com

Stellantis has a hybrid control processor problem. reuters.com

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies plan to hire around three dozen engineers in Canada. careers.rivianvw.tech

Rivian is laying off around 150 workers, its second staff cut in a matter of months. techcrunch.com

Waymo expands to Denver and Seattle with its Zeekr-made vans. techcrunch.com

Canada’s Prime Minister, Mark Carney, launched a 60-day review of the government’s EV targets and paused the 20% zero-emission vehicle sales target for 2026. bbc.com

Canada’s trade deficit narrowed in July as exports rose, driven by outbound shipments of crude oil and passenger vehicles to the US. reuters.com

ICE raided the site of a Hyundai-LG battery plant under construction in Georgia, detaining 475 workers. caranddriver.com

Cars.ca is revolutionizing the automotive industry for dealerships across Canada with its ad-free platform, allowing them to post unlimited vehicle listings and take advantage of our targeted boosts to reach a wider audience. Our marketplace streamlines inventory management and enhances vehicle listings, enabling dealerships to get more leads efficiently. Beyond vehicle listings, Cars.ca also helps dealerships stand out with enhanced vehicle profiles. Our AI Merchandising Packages—including AI Image Backgrounds and AI Descriptions—make standard listings more engaging, visually appealing, and informative, effectively capturing buyer attention. Our marketplace is designed to help you grow your business with ease and efficiency. Get started today and take your dealership to the next level with Cars.ca!

Don’t forget to subscribe to my Music and Artificial Intelligence newsletters that are part of the growing “Extended Growdy Universe”.

I hope you are having a fantastic day.