The annual meeting of the world’s most valuable auto company and sustainable energy company has arrived. Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting has started.
It’s another chance for investors to hear from Tesla (ticker: TSLA) management. They will want to hear about product and production developments. Investors will also want to hear about how Musk plans to spend his time.
A Review
It turns out, Musk dropped some important nuggets at the 2022 annual meeting of shareholders. He said that the company was likely at peak inflation. That was a good call. Growth in U.S. consumer prices has decelerated for 10 consecutive months. Tesla also started cutting prices for it vehicles at the end of 2022.
The price cuts unnerved investors, raising questions about demand and profit margins. Still, 2022 was a pretty good year. The company added almost 30,000 workers and reported operating income of $13.7 billion, a record.
Succession, Not the TV Show
Investors are thinking more about succession planning lately. There are a few reasons for that. Twitter has a new CEO, Tesla board chair Robyn Denholm put out a video stressing the strength of Tesla’s management and board and Musk is appearing on CNBC at 6 p.m. eastern time.
Succession planning could be the surprise from the 2023 annual meeting. It’s also possible that Tesla’s board wants to sound proactive after taking some criticism after Musk bought Twitter, selling a lot of Tesla stock to help finance that deal.
The Board
Annual meetings always have some board-level business to conduct. Japanese businessman and investment professional Hiro Mizuno won’t stand for reelection to Tesla’s board when his term ends. Tesla co-founder J.B. Straubel has been nominated to replace him. Today, Straubel is running his EV battery materials company Redwood Materials. He served as Tesla’s chief technology officer from 2005 to 2019.
The Stock
Beyond succession planning, any Cybertruck, production and product-related announcements have the ability to move the stock.
Tesla shares dropped 6.6% after the 2022 annual meeting of shareholders, held in August. Nothing really big happened at that event. Sometimes investors start to expect things and get disappointed when nothing happens. It took seven days for Tesla stock to recover that loss. Tesla stock was above $300 a share back then.
Tesla stock was up 0.2% in late trading Tuesday, at $166.68 a share. The
S&P 500
and
Nasdaq Composite
were down 0.6% and 0.1%, respectively.
Coming into Tuesday trading, Tesla stock was up roughly 35% year to date.
Write to Al Root at [email protected]
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