Thread by @PlugInFUD

🚨 THREAD 🚨

Was Zach appointed CFO of Tesla on January 5th?

If so, did $tsla break SEC rules in not reporting it until January 30th, when, during the last moments of the call, Elon told Deepak to say his final goodbye and said Zach was taking over?

Hmm....

$tslaq

1/

My basis for this (speculative) assertion is the massive stock option grant given to Zach on January 5th, as now known thanks to his My Little First Form 3 filed today: ir.tesla.com/static-files/3…

2/

Lets start from the beginning.

Zach's first grant (per this Form 3) appears to have been in February 2011. This is likely when he told his ol buddy Elon that he was headed to business school in the fall. The options were a nice goodbye gift/enticement to return.

3/

The next grant of options appears to have been in November 2018, coinciding with his promotion to VP. Well done, Zachy boy.

4/

And then, the mother lode, on January 5, 2019.

Nearly 11,000 sweet sweet options.

I doubt this relates to any annual review process, as the other options grants didn't seem to and the RSU grants (prior to the last one) always happened in Sept or Dec.

5/

...also, the fat stack of RSUs was granted on March 5th, which was a week before Zach's official announcement/appointment to CFO. maybe this is when it was super duper solidified.

6/

...so I interpret that January 5th options grant to be when it was solidified that Zach would be Tesla's next CFO.

Kinda makes sense, given Deepak said his real goodbye on the Q3 call.

so, does that matter?

well, maybe, for a couple of reasons.

7/

I'm no securities lawyer but, if Zach was appointed as CFO-in-residence on January 5th, seems like there's a chance that Tesla should have reported that per Form 8-k rules.

Maybe should have filed the Form 3 sooner too.

8/

...but perhaps more importantly, Tesla may have wanted to keep this on the DL as January was a very tumultuous time. They had to know that sales were trending poorly. January 18th was when Elon announced the big layoffs: tesla.com/blog/tesla-com…

9/

thus, scaring the markets with a CFO departure (at that point it was unknown that Deepak was on the way out would have been too much to bear).

10/

Anyway, regardless of potential rule-bending or sus suppressing, this is pretty much just Tesla being Tesla. When most execs quit, they go on leave and then ride off into the sunset. Only the shock-and-awe Morton immediate goodbye was a bandaid rip.

11/

p.s. good luck zach. you're holding this bag now. the order book has dried up. the company has virtually no liquidity. A capital raise was needed a year ago, but for some reason, your predecessor couldnt convince Elon to do it.

hopefully this is all worth it.

$tsla $tslaq

fin

addendum:

january 5th, the date of the grant, was a saturday. not sure if that's weird or not, but my bonuses and comp plans have always been established on business days.

$tsla $tslaq