Two Tesla board members close to Elon Musk, Ira Ehrenpreis and Kimbal Musk, just sold almost $200 million worth of Tesla (TSLA) stocks.

Tesla board members are known for their generous stock compensation and for quickly selling it when it vests.

They settled a lawsuit brought by shareholders who alleged they were overcompensated, and they agreed to return nearly $1 billion in compensation.

Even with returning the excessive compensation, Tesla’s chairwoman is by far the best-compensated board member of any major public company.

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Lately, she has been liquidating her stocks in Tesla and she is not the only board member selling.

Last night, Tesla reported that Ira Ehrenpreis, a longtime friend and financier of Tesla CEO Elon Musk who sits on the automaker’s board, sold 477,572 shares worth over $162 million.

Ehrenpreis’ term on the board ends this year. He has been on the board for almost 20 years. He was, and still is, on the compensation committee that granted Musk’s controversial 2018 CEO compensation plan worth $55 billion.

Along with Ehrenpreis, Tesla also disclosed that Kimball Musk, Elon’s brother and longtime Tesla board member, sold 91,588 shares worth more than $32 million.

Electrek’s Take

Isn’t it strange that the board would sell hundreds of millions of dollars worth of stocks just weeks and months ahead of launching an autonomous ride-hailing service, which is supposed to usher in a new era of growth for Tesla?

It’s almost as if they don’t even believe it.

And yes, it’s true that some of those sales by board members were made under previously adopted plans, but these plans are opaque and we don’t know what leeway board members have within the plans.

But we do know, in the case of Ehrenpreis, that his plan was adopted just a few months ago in December when Tesla’s stock surged following Trump’s election. It looks like he was looking for a way out, and he likes the current level.

I think the board knows that Tesla is facing incredible liability over its failed promises on self-driving and that the rollout in Austin next month is more for show than anything.

Tesla is trying to use a piece of property in Australia, near Adelaide, in order to build a battery factory and Tesla showroom. But it’s facing steep opposition from locals, most of whom cite dissatisfaction with Tesla CEO Elon Musk as their reason to oppose the project.

The plans center on Marion, a small city of population 4,101, a suburb of Adelaide, the capital of South Australia.

Last month, a developer submitted plans to use a piece of land referred to as Chestnut Court Reserve, which has been inaccessible to the public since 2016 due to contamination concerns. Plans to develop the location would involve a requirement to clean up the contamination on the site.

They would also involve the cutting of several trees on the site, some of which have been deemed as “dead or ill health,” with a plan to plant trees at another site to make up for any removals.

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The developer said it would use this land to build a new fit-for-purpose factory facility that would be used by Tesla both as a showroom and service center for Tesla vehicles, and also a facility that could be used for “repurposing of Tesla batteries.”

The plan doesn’t go too deep into the specifics of how said repurposing would happen, but it could involve using Tesla vehicle batteries in Powerwalls, or in Tesla’s Powerpack grid storage projects, which are quite popular in South Australia, where they have helped to solve some of the region’s significant power stability problems.

The developer makes the case that Tesla already has a presence in the area in neighboring Tonsley, that Tesla’s mission (and the specific mission of a battery recycling center) supports the environmental goals of the community, and that the facility would create around 100 full-time jobs in the local community, including highly skilled jobs like battery researchers.

All in all, the developer thinks it would inject $56 million into the local community, quite a nice chunk of change for the small town.

And the city council also supports the plan, thinking that the job and economic benefits are worth it, particularly given that the land is not being used for anything else.

The plans were submitted, the residents were consulted, and now that all the chips are on the table… the residents aren’t having it.

Residents respond with a lot of language we shouldn’t say here

The local community gave significant pushback to this idea, with some ~95% of residents disapproving the plan. The city received 948 comments on the plan, which sounds like quite a lot for a city of 4,101 people. However, half of those comments came from outside the city’s area.

But among those comments from the immediate area of the development, only 11 comments favored the plans, with 121 opposing them (that’s 92% opposition).

Among the comments (quoted by The Guardian) come these gems, which wonderfully showcase the stereotypical Australian predilection for colorful language:

• “Because Elon Musk is a [redacted] human being and a [redacted]!”
• “Elon Musk and Tesla are a [redacted] on humanity”
• “Elon Musk is a full blown [redacted]”
• “Destroying trees to build a factory for a company owned by a [redacted] would be a vile choice”
• “We should not support and put money in the pockets of a [redacted] who openly [redacted] salutes, is [redacted] human”

We’ll let you try to fill in some of those words, though we’re pretty sure what some of them are (and, honestly, while I somewhat understand the point of redacting profanity in public records, I’d say it is a little absurd to redact “nazi”).

The plans haven’t received their final vote yet, and the council still seems like it wants to convince the local community to go forward with them. But some residents suggest that the site could be better used by other companies, and that alternate uses could help to preserve that land and also avoid potential image concerns for the area as protests against Tesla continue globally.

Some other comments, perhaps wrongly, called the possible building “a noisy, ugly, planet-destroying temple to billionaires.”

While it’s disappointing to see a proposed recycling facility referred to thusly (although Tesla does have a questionable history when it comes to following local environmental rules), it’s just another sign of how Tesla CEO Elon Musk is drastically affecting the brand, and holding it back from its stated mission to advance sustainable transport.

Response shows once again that Musk is harming Tesla

The responses show just how damaging Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been to the company with his recent public advocacy, which has included performing back-to-back unambiguous Nazi salutes in front of a large crowd, agreeing with a defense of Hitler’s actions in the Holocaust, and many other white supremacist statements.

His advocacy hasn’t been limited just to the United States, where he is currently working to balloon the US deficit and is the largest funder of the republican party who are trying to tax EVs and send US jobs to China. He’s also meddled in other countries’ politics, including support for German neo-Nazis.

These actions have driven protests against the company, embarrassed owners and pushed many customers away, and even resulted in a hack that doxxed many Tesla owners.

The backlash, like Musk’s advocacy, has been global. Tesla sales are dropping in most regions, even as EV sales rise as a whole. Specifically in Australia, Tesla sales saw a big drop year-over-year. And this has applied to corporate customers too, with Tesla losing corporate sales as multiple companies have cited their distaste with the CEO.

While Musk has tried to brush these falling sales numbers off, it’s clear that he personally is doing incredible brand damage to the company.

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For years, Tesla has been the go-to EV recommendation for “normals” looking for a painless, low-effort experience from their first electric cars, but Elon Musk’s political antics are causing people to shop elsewhere. On today’s episode of Quick Charge, we’ll discuss some options … and how you might be able to pay for them!

Speaking of Tesla alternatives, the Ford F-150 Lightning is the electric truck sales king once again, while the E-Transit van is now selling for the same (or less) than the gas version and Ford Pro launches a new incentive consulting service to help you pay for them.

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