Elon Musk Addresses Tesla Shareholders during 2023 Annual Meeting in Texas, TSLA Shares Up

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by Steve Muchoki · 3 min read
Elon Musk Addresses Tesla Shareholders during 2023 Annual Meeting in Texas, TSLA Shares Up
Photo: Tesla / Twitter

Musk noted that Tesla will conduct a third-party audit of its cobalt supply chain to ensure there is no child labour in the supply chain.

During this year’s Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) annual shareholders meeting – held on Tuesday in Austin, Texas – tech billionaire Elon Musk charged the crowd with the company’s products and near-term growth prospects. Musk told the group of shareholders that he expects the economy to get even more gloomier in the next twelve months. However, Musk promised the shareholders Tesla will survive in the long haul, whereby the billionaire predicted many companies will go bankrupt during the next twelve months.

As a result, Tesla shares edged higher on Tuesday, whereby TSLA stock traded around $168.52 during the after-hours trading session, up approximately 1.2 percent. Today in the pre-market, TSLA is 1.49 percent up. Notably, Tesla shares have gained about 35.18 percent YTD, but are still not yet out of last year’s falling trend. As of Wednesday, Tesla had a market capitalization of approximately $527.25 billion with 3.17 billion in shares outstanding.

Highlights of Tesla 2023 Shareholder Meeting

During the meeting on Tuesday, Musk announced that Tesla will deliver its first Cybertruck this year. In this regard, Musk estimated the company will deliver between 250,000 to 500,000 Cybertruck units a year once the production kicks off. As a teaser, Musk stated that he will drive the Cybertruck on a daily basis. He, however, noted that the Cybertruck will not be produced as an RV or a camper, but agreed buyers can convert to either desired design.

During the Tesla annual meeting, the shareholders voted to add former Chief Technology Officer (CTO) JB Straubel, the current CEO of Redwood Materials, to the company’s board of directors.

As a show of commitment, Musk promised he will be more focused on Tesla after a six-month distraction from the Twitter acquisition. Furthermore, Musk stepped down as Twitter CEO and appointed former NBC Universal advertising executive Linda Yaccarino as the new Chief Executive Officer.

Musk noted that Tesla will conduct a third-party audit of its cobalt supply chain to ensure there is no child labor in the supply chain.

“Even for the small amount of cobalt that we do use, we will make sure six weeks til Sunday that no child labor is being exploited,” the tech billionaire said.

Meanwhile, Musk promised that Tesla’s Model Y is slated to be the number one selling car on earth this year. During the first quarter, the electric vehicle company produced more than 440,000 EVs and delivered over 422,000 units to customers. Out of which, the majority of the produced and delivered EVs were Model 3/Y, amounting to 421,371 manufactured during the first quarter.

One of the attendees asked Musk about the company’s stance on traditional advertisement. In his response, Musk noted that the company will try out a little advertising and see how it goes. Notably, Tesla has over the years relied on word of mouth to have its products known widely, as the main marketing strategy. However, the company’s shareholders want more traditional advertising to compete with other EV makers like NIO Inc (NYSE: NIO).

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