Tesla annual meeting: Here's what shareholders will vote on today

Tesla shareholders will vote on nine proposals Thursday afternoon, including whether to oust CEO Elon Musk's brother, Kimbal, from the board.

Video Transcript

- And let's hone in on the automakers face here. Two names in focus today, GM as well as Tesla, both on their EV plays, Tesla, of course, of the EV car maker but GM up in a big way. Take a look at where the stock is trading today as the company announced it is doubling down on its revenue or planning to double its revenue by 2030 by doubling down on an all electric future.

CEO Mary Barra speaking at Investor Day, announcing some pretty lofty targets here, Zach, saying the company sees $90 billion in revenue coming directly from EV sales by 2030. Of course, we've been talking a lot about a number of their cars becoming electric, we're talking about the Chevy crossover SUV and electric Chevy Silverado pickup, GMC Sierra pickup.

I mean, the list goes on here but Mary Barra is saying that 50% of its factories in North America and China will be capable of EV production by 2030. Of course, there's still a lot of questions about whether the supply chain can necessarily keep up with the kind of demand that GM sees with its pivot to EVs.

- Yeah, you can add the Hummer, the EV Hummer to that list of other models also. I mean, it is a big push. We were talking about Wedbush's Dan Ives yesterday on the show about the upside he sees for GM, if they're able to accomplish, I mean, doubling sales by 2030, a lofty goal.

He sees the overall space growing but the big question is how much GM's going to eat into that market share and whether or not any of the early stumbles maybe weigh on the excitement, clearly not weighing on the excitement here. But we got to reflect on the fact that the Bolt, the recall issues around there that they've been catching fire and they had to fix all of those models out there in regards to the Bolt.

I mean, you really, if you are an investor and you believe in the 60% upside that Dan I was just talking about yesterday for GM, you got to believe that they're going to fix all that and eventually it will be easier for a company like GM to just flip the switch and say, look, we went from being a gas company to being an EV car maker.

And that's not necessarily always as easy as it sounds when you're going up against the likes of Tesla and all the other traditional automakers that are looking to do the same.

- Yeah. Well, an interesting play for GM, and you talk about the recall with the Chevy Bolts, the company is investing in a huge way in battery technology. That to me is a really interesting story to watch here because increasingly as so many car makers set these goals to go all in on EVs over the next decade or so, you're going to have to control parts of that supply chain too, GM at least has made a big bet on battery technology.

One more interesting thing to note here, they did unveil their Ultra Cruise, which is their advanced driver assistance technology, hands free driving in 95% of driving scenarios, so that seems like a direct competitor to what Tesla has to offer. But, of course, today we're watching Tesla in the afternoon, they're going to be having their annual shareholder meeting as well, a few housekeeping things in terms of discussing the makeup of their board.

But there's going to be a lot of questions here about chip shortages, whether, in fact, Tesla can continue to deliver at the rate they have been. We just got those numbers last week or over the weekend, I should say, on Tesla and those deliveries were certainly really strong. The question is going to be whether, in fact, they can keep up with that kind of pace.

- Yeah. And the other big board push here too, Akiko, that's going to be interesting to watch is Kimbal Musk, the brother of Elon Musk, up for potentially going to get removed, there is that shareholder vote.

We've heard from ISS, a large advisory firm that helps investors vote on these things, saying that they would not support Murdoch on the board or Kimbal Musk, either one of them, because they said that it hasn't justified the compensation around those two.

And that's interesting just because we talk about rebukes against Elon Musk and leading this company all the time, the issues with the SCC in years past. But Kimbal Musk being the brother of Elon Musk on the board, he of course, and the company defending having both of those gentlemen on the board.

But that's going to be a rather interesting one to watch just because we talk about maybe taking some power away from Elon Musk, his brother, and whether or not the people on that board deserve to be there.

So that's definitely one that I'm going to be watching just because you think about a closer look at that company. We've heard a lot about issues, particularly around some workers not being happy and the company having to spend more on that, governance issues here.

It's not something we talk about a lot when it comes to big companies, particularly ones that are as flashy as Tesla but still matters. So, it's going to be interesting to see how many investors make their voices heard and how those votes go.

- Yeah. I am curious if we want to bring it back to the stock, though, how much of that actually will move depending on the board makeup. I mean, certainly like you said, it really is an important issue that a lot of shareholders are following because it does point to the way in which Tesla is going to move forward.

But at the end of the day, it feels like those headline numbers on deliveries, particularly, are kind of what investors are looking at or at least that's what we've seen the stock move on.

- Yeah, that matters I think in the grand scheme of things, and you're talking about $137 a case here against a worker who was talking about racism allegations in the workplace. Obviously from a company culture perspective, in the long term, as we've heard from these activist investors, those things matter to Tesla but for investors right now it's going to be a question of whether or not that takes precedence over what the growth numbers have been in kind of not touching a board that's been able to deliver so far.

But longer term clearly these investors pushing some of those issues, not something you want to see, certainly not in Hispanic Heritage Month. Some of the allegations that we heard in these cases as well. But interesting, of course, to see these raised at the top level and we'll see how those votes go.