I'd be in favor of this I think. It might force Elon, Tesla, or the shareholders to address the elephant in the room: Teslas market cap vs their revenue.
Teslas market cap is 1030m on 31.5m of revenue. GM is 79m on revenue of 122.5m. That's 50x the market cap per revenue.
If a company is doing tons of R&D, and everything suggests that that R&D will give huge dividends in the future, then it seems perfectly normal for such a company to have a high market-cap/revenue ratio.
If having too big of a market cap relative to revenue is wrong, then you're basically saying that companies should not invest too much in their future, just use their money to sell as much as possible right now.
You know who else has extremely high ratios of mktcap/revenue? Pharmaceutical companies trying to cure diseases that have no available cure. Is it wrong to try to cure those diseases?
Revenue is an instantaneous metric of a company where as Market Value is a reflection of sentiment integrated over time and relatively compared to competing options for capital (such as other stocks, bonds, even present vs future purchases if inflation is material).
They will always be quite disjoint when viewed with an single/small number of revenue data points.
I think what most people want is for billionaires to pay their true rate of income instead of artificially low percentages because they have access to financial instruments that most don't.
jesus christ, yes. Elon didn't become a billionaire including assets until 2012, well after nasa awarded them the cargo contract and two years after Falcon 9 started launching. Before that, he was barely a millionaire after PayPal and his investments in Tesla and SpaceX. This tax wouldn't have affected him at all until both SpaceX and Tesla were relatively healthy with both Falcon 9 and Model S.
There's a reason CEO's at this level take $1 in salary.
cosmotic|4 years ago
Teslas market cap is 1030m on 31.5m of revenue. GM is 79m on revenue of 122.5m. That's 50x the market cap per revenue.
young_unixer|4 years ago
If having too big of a market cap relative to revenue is wrong, then you're basically saying that companies should not invest too much in their future, just use their money to sell as much as possible right now.
You know who else has extremely high ratios of mktcap/revenue? Pharmaceutical companies trying to cure diseases that have no available cure. Is it wrong to try to cure those diseases?
maerF0x0|4 years ago
They will always be quite disjoint when viewed with an single/small number of revenue data points.
ralph84|4 years ago
gtCameron|4 years ago
MisterBastahrd|4 years ago
hncurious|4 years ago
Also what if it had been in place during the dotcom boom and bust?
karkisuni|4 years ago
There's a reason CEO's at this level take $1 in salary.