Elon tells Tesla employees not to sell TSLA stocks as board and execs are dumping
At an all-hands meeting last night, Elon Musk stood before Tesla employees and told them to “hang on to their TSLA stocks” as Tesla board members and top executive are dumping their shares amid a 40% crash.
Tesla has frequently held “all-hands” meetings for employees over the years, but last night, it was the first time that they were streamed publicly.
CEO Elon Musk didn’t announce anything new during the meeting. He mostly recapped Tesla’s latest milestones over the last year, thanked employees for their work, and reinstated several of his overly optimistic predictions about Tesla’s future regarding self-driving cars, robots, and stock valuation.
The CEO again claimed that he believed that Tesla would become the world’s most valuable company by a wide margin.
Musk went as far as asking employees, and indirectly the public as this was publicly live-streamed, to “hang on to their stocks.”
This comes after Tesla’s stock dropped more than 40% so far this year and Tesla is expected to have its worst quarter of the last 3 years.
The suggestion that Tesla employees and the public should hold on to their shares is a bold statement given that Tesla board members and executives have been selling recently.
We recently reported that several board members and Tesla’s own chief financial officer have been selling millions of Tesla stocks lately.
Here’s a summary of Tesla board members and executives selling their Tesla stocks over the last 3 months:
| Insider | Position | Shares Sold | Total Value (approx.) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Robyn M. Denholm | Board Chair | 224,780 | ~$76.9 million |
| Kimbal Musk | Director (Board Member) | 75,000 | ~$27.6 million |
| James R. Murdoch | Director (Board Member) | 54,776 | ~$13.2 million |
| Vaibhav Taneja | Chief Financial Officer | ~13,500 | ~$4.5 million |
| Kathleen Wilson-Thompson | Director (Board Member) | 100,000 | ~$41.2 million |
Electrek’s Take
I wonder if Elon has given them the same speech about holding on to their shares and that Tesla would soon be the most valuable company in the world?
If they believed him, they would buy Tesla stocks, not sell them.
Not a single Tesla insider who requires SEC reporting to buy or sell Tesla stocks has purchased it in the last few years.
None.
To me, it looks like Elon is getting desperate here. He knows that Tesla is about to have a terrible quarter. April is likely going to be tough for Tesla’s stock with the delivery report in the first week and the earnings later in the month.
He wanted to boost the stock before those events happened in order to limit the damages.
It’s likely going to work for a bit. He exposed his new fans on the right to his now well-known speech about Tesla becoming the most valuable company in the world through robotaxis and humanoid robots. Some of those new fans might decide to buy on this recommendation.
However, they are likely to get burned within weeks. This has become the new normal with this administration pumping cryptos, DJT, etc.
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The last two gas-powered Cadillac sedans, the CT4 and CT5, could be traded in for a pair of EVs. GM reportedly has no plans for a next-gen Cadillac CT4 or CT5 with an internal combustion engine, but an electric version could replace it.
Cadillac CT4 and CT5 sedans could return as EVs
Cadillac is coming off its best sales year since 2016. The luxury brand’s impressive growth last year is all thanks to sales of the Lyriq, Cadillac’s electric SUV, surging over 200%.
GM sold over 28,400 Lyriqs last year, significantly more than the 9,154 it sold in 2023. With the Escalade IQ, Optiq, and Vistiq rolling out this year, Cadillac will have a luxury electric SUV in every segment.
Meanwhile, sales of Cadillac’s gas-powered CT4 (-32.1%) and CT5 (-20.1%) dropped by double-digits last year. Although GM is still planning to launch 2026 models, they might not be around much longer than that.
Sources familiar with the matter told GM Authority that the next-gen Cadillac CT4 and CT5 sedans are not part of the plans. At least not with an internal combustion engine. Cadillac will likely still introduce a pair of sedans in the future, but they are expected to be EVs.
The EVs will reportedly be closer in size to the CT5 and already retired CT6. Both are expected to launch overseas in places like Europe as Cadillac expands into new markets.
In addition, the report claims that Cadillac’s upcoming EV sedans will ride on a new “BEV Prime” platform, believed to be an upgraded version of the BEV3 platform. The BEV3 platform underpins Chevy’s Blazer and Equinox EVs, as well as the Cadillac Lyriq, Vistriq, and Optiq SUVs.
The new EV sedans may not look the same with an expected fastback design, similar to the Cadillac Escala Concept.
Electrek’s Take
GM has already retired the Chevy Malibu and Cadillac XT4, so killing off the gas-powered CT4 and CT5 wouldn’t be a surprise.
With sales dropping by double-digits in 2024, the luxury sedans are due for an upgrade. Although Cadillac backtracked on plans for an exclusively EV lineup by 2030, it still plans to offer a model in every segment.
Cadillac’s marketing director, Brad Franz, told CNBC this week that the luxury brand aims for EVs to make up 30% to 35% of total US sales in 2025. That would be nearly double the 18% it achieved last year. Cadillac wants to be the top-selling luxury EV brand in the country, but it does not include Tesla in its definition of “luxury.”
Would you buy an electric Cadillac sedan over, say, the Tesla Model S or Lucid Air? Comment below and let us know what features and specs you’d like to see.
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The Hamilton police in Ontario announced that over 80 Tesla vehicles were damaged in a vandalism attack at a Tesla service center.
It’s the latest example of a series of vandalism attacks against Tesla over the last few weeks.
On Wednesday March 19, Hamilton Police reported being called were called to the Tesla service center located at 999 Upper Wentworth Street over a report of “damage to some of the vehicles in the store’s inventory.”
Hamilton Police reported:
Officers responded and discovered upwards of 80 Tesla vehicles which were parked outdoors had been damaged, including but not limited to deep scratches and punctured tires.
Here are some images of the damage via CTV:
Police said they are currently “reviewing CCTV camera footage and are asking the public for their assistance in solving this crime.”
There have been many instances of Tesla vehicles being vandalized at Tesla locations over the last few weeks, but 80 vehicles at once is a first.
Tesla is currently under probe in Canada for having pre-filed thousands of rebates worth $43 million with the government before they paused their EV incentive program in January. There are doubts about Tesla having delivered any significant amount of the vehicles it would have needed to deliver in order to justify filing for those rebates.
In addition to this current situation, Tesla is facing backlashes in Canada as both an American brand and because it is controlled by Elon Musk, Donald Trump’s biggest political donor.
Trump has been waging a trade war against Canada without hiding the fact that his goal is to weaken the country economically in order to force it to be annexed by the US.
This is widely unpopular in Canada.
Electrek’s Take
Again, as we have been for weeks, if you feel justified in going after Tesla for being Elon Musk’s personal piggy bank to finance the rise of fascism, I can sympathize with you. Still, vandalism or any form of violence is not the way to do it.
Protests and boycotts are much more efficient, and they happen to still be legal.
I also like to point out that this doesn’t even hurt Tesla that much. Tesla is having a very hard time selling cars in Canada, right, it’s not only because of eroding public perception because of Musk or as an American brand amid Trump’s trade war.
Canada’s recently paused EV incentive program has slowed down all EV sales, particularly Tesla’s.
Tesla was probably going to be stuck with most of these vehicles in inventory at the end of the quarter anyway.
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Environment
Heathrow shutdown is a ‘dramatic learning curve’ in airport crisis management, expert says
The closure of London’s Heathrow Airport due to a nearby fire on Friday has put the focus on the aviation industry’s ability to handle a crisis, according to a travel industry expert.
At the time of writing, Heathrow remained shut after a fire at an electricity substation that caused a power outage on Friday.
“The growth of the [aviation] industry is happening faster than the growth of infrastructure,” said Anita Mendiratta, founder of consultancy AM&A, who stressed that aviation needs to become more resilient to incidents like an energy supply disruption, or to geopolitical or weather events.
The Heathrow outage is “putting a spotlight on the need to make sure that the entire network of energy supply for any … airport around the world has sufficient capability to address a crisis,” Mendiratta told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Friday. “All of this is a very dramatic learning curve.”
A back-up generator was also affected by the blaze, raising questions over the resilience of the supporting energy infrastructure, according to U.K. energy minister Ed Miliband, while Willie Walsh, director general of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) described Heathrow’s reliance on a “single” power source as a “clear planning failure” by the airport.
In an emailed statement, Heathrow said it has multiple sources of energy. “Our back up systems are safety systems which allow us to land aircraft and evacuate passengers safely, but they are not designed to allow us to run a full operation,” Heathrow said.
Broader impact
Mendiratta said the Heathrow incident would have have a ripple effect for aviation that goes far beyond flight cancelations. She described the implications of the Heathrow incident as “very wide,” as the growth of aviation is outpacing the increase in supporting infrastructure, she said.
Mendiratta described the growth of aviation globally as “massive.”
“It is extreme in terms of how it has grown far beyond even 2019 rates,” she said. This raises questions over the industry’s resilience to unplanned weather or geopolitical events and whether the surrounding infrastructure can support it.
Globally, both domestic and international air passenger traffic surpassed pre-Covid-19 levels in early 2024, according to IATA, and passenger numbers are expected to increase by an average of 3.8% annually to 2043, compared to 2023.
“Even though much of the focus of the story is very much on Heathrow and passengers, what we also need to take into account is over and above passenger traffic, over 4,000 tons of cargo go through Heathrow every single day,” Mendiratta added.
Heathrow Airport handled a record 83.9 million passengers in 2024 — up nearly 6% on the year prior — while its cargo transportation increased by 10%.
Whether passengers can get compensation for canceled flights depends on their airlines’ terms, Mendiratta said. As the Heathrow fire appears to be outside of airlines’ control, such reimbursement may not be payable, according to a note issued by Citi on Friday.
Investors will consider short-term costs such as food and beverage, accommodation, alternative flights or land transport for passengers affected by cancelations, Mendiratta flagged, as well as looking at how airlines manage customer care in the long term.
“That, ultimately, is going to be the basis of customer retention, which from an investor point of view is going to be very important … it’s a significant calculation,” she said.
Future of aviation
A third runway at Heathrow Airport has long been mooted, with its CEO putting pressure on the U.K. government to make a decision on the controversial expansion by the end of the year. British Finance Minister Rachel Reeves said the extra runway was “badly needed” in a January speech.
Meanwhile the aviation industry is pushing forward with sustainable aviation fuel deals to help meet decarbonization targets.
“As we shift into the future and look at sustainable aviation, this is where infrastructure can now look at green technologies, which are vital to enable aviation to continue to grow, but grow in a healthy way,” Mendiratta said.
— CNBC’s Jenni Reid contributed to this report.
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