Tesla Investors Got Mad With 2023 Tesla Investor Day

The market reaction to the presentation shows how negatively this Tesla Investor Day was received. On March 1, the EV maker’s share presented a peak valuation of $206.13. On March 2, the price dropped to $186.77. That is a 9.4% price drop. Although it seems to be recovering, do not search for any other explanation apart from the Tesla Investor Day: there’s none.

As the folks at Jalopnik quickly realized, the whole thing had already started with legal disclaimers. Zach Kirkhorn was the first to speak, and he said everything at the event would be forward-looking statements. In other words, the CFO made it clear that every promise made there would be a legally protected form of speculation, not something to guide investors. Ironically, there were very few new promises, which made investors furious.

Kevin Paffrath was possibly one of the most vocal investors about how unhappy he was. We already talked about him here when his Lucid Air presented a failed power steering. In the video below, the YouTuber spared no words about what a mess he thinks the presentation was – some are NSFW, so be careful where you watch it. He also touches on subjects that reinforce my own impressions about the EV maker.

On November 4, 2021, I wrote about how Tesla revoked a leasing option with no down payments it had announced on November 1. At the time, I wrote that this was another example of how the EV maker did not seem to plan anything – like the Joker in “The Dark Knight.” Paffrath said the same about the Tesla Investor Day presentation.

The investor said it was clear that there was “an absolute lack of prep” for the event and accused Musk of being busy testing a new feature on Twitter Spaces and getting to the Tesla Investor Day “looking like he’s about to fall asleep.” That would be inexcusable for something the EV maker announced six months earlier. “It’s a complete flop and a complete disaster,” Paffrath said. He stated Musk logged off from Tesla.

According to the investor, 99% of all things Tesla announced were already known from previous events. Pattrath said the EV maker used the same graphics and even the same information, with nothing new about the pretense announcements. The investor said that they “barely got anything else,” with the exception being a van that Pattrath calls the “Sprinter” and the entry-level vehicle about which Tesla did not disclose anything. Tesla expects to sell 300 million units of the van and 700 million units of its affordable EV. Forward-looking statements, remember?

The investor said that Tesla needed to host an event to thank the ones betting on the company, with a road map for them to join more confidently. Instead, Pattrath thinks the event was “a middle finger” to investors, almost as bad as Elon Musk “dumping $24 billion worth of shares in 2022 to go focus being the CEO of Twitter.” In his opinion, what the event showed was a Tesla without Musk, and “it’s bad.”

With the entire event being forward-looking statements, the investor also classified it as clickbait. When Musk said the event was for people who are investing in Earth, Pattrath deemed that as almost as bad as what Laurie Shelby said.

The executive is Tesla’s VP for EHS & Security and Impact, but she also uses a trendier title on LinkedIn. Like the Technoking (Musk) and the Master of Coin (Kirkhorn), she wrote there that she is the Protector of the Realm. For Pattrath, she failed this mission at the event.

Shelby noted that Tesla vehicles “use less (sic) emissions than gas-powered vehicles.” The graphic she presented is even worse. Its title is “Our Vehicles Emit Less (sic) Emissions Than Gas Vehicles.” Forgetting about “fewer” is not the worst problem. As Pattrath states, her remarks suggested the EV maker had no clue who it was addressing – as if Tesla investors were not perfectly aware of what a battery-electric vehicle (BEV) is.

Pattrath summed that up later as a “communication failure.” In his words, Tesla must have thought it was cheaper to burn $60 billion in market cap than put $1 million all year long on a competent PR department that would prevent the embarrassment the event caused. Even Tesla advocates such as Gary Black have repeatedly urged the company to hire a PR team to prevent communications problems. Despite that, Tesla simply does not talk to the press.

The YouTuber also joked about the possible name of the entry-level car that was not introduced at the event. Rumor has it that Tesla would call it Model Q. As it was structured, Pattrath said the event pleased short-sellers. It would have been a pump for them, collectively identified as TSLAQ. Adding the Q to the sticker is the NASDAQ notation for bankruptcy.

Although Pattrath was only the most vocal investor so far about the presentation, the general perception is that it did not help the company in any way. Claiming to be worried about the future of the planet instead of about the future of the company also sounded like greenwashing, as a great article published by The Verge demonstrates. As its title states, “Elon Musk’s sustainability dreams for Tesla need to start in his own backyard.” I couldn’t have said it better, especially after trying to do so a little bit before the 2023 Tesla Investor Day took place. I do not blame shareholders for being apprehensive: nothing from the event justified the company’s incredible market cap.