I wonder if it is the people who worked on dojo that just got bought by tesla especially when they restarted their efforts on dojo earlier this year. [1]
In April 2026, the Company entered into an agreement to acquire an AI hardware company for up to $2.00 billion in Tesla common stock and equity awards, of which approximately $1.8 billion is subject to certain service conditions and/or performance milestones dependent on the successful deployment of the company's technology.
That's a better title, as "Tesla discloses $2B AI hardware company acquisition buried" could also mean "Tesla disclosed that it buried an acquisition" or "Tesla disclosed that a hardware company buried an acquisition".
It's pretty obvious much of this article was written with AI, there's about 15 emdashes.
This electrek site frequently comes up in my Firefox news feed and they seem to have made a business of breathless reporting news about Tesla with a negative spin.
I really used to enjoy Fred's writing on Electrek. But after the Roadster referral debacle, Fred's tune changed and has gotten more negative... so negative now that you cannot find any positive articles about Musk or Tesla (some articles you might classify as 'neutral'). If you look at comment counts, it's clear Fred is playing to the "I hate Musk" crowd now for clicks (comments and clicks have similar outcomes for Google Adsense). Electrek's other articles' comment counts pale in comparison. So the incentive is pretty obvious now. Too bad.
I find it funny how stealing 500,000 $ from a fan is a "debacle". In most places that would be considered a felony instead of a justification to smear the victim and call them a whiner.
You are totally right. In accordance with the Tesla Referral Program contract a estimated ~250,000,000 $ in sales were referred to Tesla by major referrers earning those major referrers ~80 free Tesla Roadsters [1], announced as a 250,000 $ value and used a explicit contractual incentive to the program, in accordance with that legal contract. Having engaged in work on behalf of Tesla on the contractual guarantee of compensation and having earned that compensation in accordance with the contract, Tesla legally owes those fans ~20,000,000 $ in aggregate which it has so far rejected compensating for nearly 7 years.
I am not sure what term you use for having people work on your behalf according to the terms of a contract and then not paying the agreed upon compensation, but "theft" or "steal" would be the colloquial term. Only the intentionally biased would claim a trillion dollar company not paying fans for their work in accordance with their own contract is not "stealing" in common parlance.
I am sorry I was downplaying Tesla's bad behavior by just highlighting that individual fans were jilted out of hundreds of thousands of dollars of their work instead of pointing out how they screwed hundreds of their most loyal fans out of tens of millions of dollars of earned compensation. Anything other than praise for such a upstanding company is unwarranted and smearing their victims is the only unbiased move.
His utter failure at DOGE is irrelevant too, slashing aid programs that will result in the deaths of millions while not making any discernible impact on the budget. No one cares about that.
Anyone with sense sees the negativity around Tesla.
It trades at a 360 p/e with annually shrinking finances. None of it's blockbuster promises have come to fruition, and it keeps on faux chasing hype products to keep shares buoyant. Nevermind all the shady accounting and and notorious opaque data sharing that has cropped up in the last few years.
It has had three success stories which are all pretty banal (model S, model 3, model Y), and has a litany of perpetually "just around the corner" products that will fill those massive 360 p/e shoes and then way more. FSD, roadster, semi, model 2, robotaxi, optimus robot, and now terafab. All vaporware that is indefinitely pending, and seem perfectly crafted to tickle the mind of "the internet IQ test said I'm a genius" type investors.
It then has it's meh business of battery production and storage, which does alright for what it is, but even still is now borderline noncompetitive with Chinese offerings.
So if electrek is going hard against Tesla...it kind of makes sense?
What if you were just reporting on electric cars then dropped most reporting on electric cars from the foremost electric car company unless there was a way to include ceo-bashing for half the article? I get being fair or even a decent amount of hatred for whatever reason, but Fred really changed his tune and became quite spiteful. It was sad to watch, and many people tried to help in online comments, but seems like the negativity mostly won out.
BYD has two SUVs in the ranking, which added together brings them to parity with the Y.
That aside though, in total sales, BYD is selling 2.5x the amount of EVs.
Tesla ranked 9th, behind Toyota and Volkswagen for total sales in Feb and March.
Globally, Tesla has a tight lineup, so there is only one SUV choice. Other brands outsell Tesla model Y, but it's splintered across their many offerings in the SUV space. Tesla really wants you to know that the model Y is the top selling car globally. They don't want you to know that other SUV brands outsell them, but in the form of many different models.
This is exactly the kind of nonsesne flexing I am referring to that comes out of Tesla for the last few years. Things that on the surface seem "wow", but underneath are just shady or misdirection.
Tesla sales numbers are perpetually skewed by their limited model numbers. Other car manufacturers (rightly or wrongly) have many more SKUs, so any one particular version is unlikely to hit the #1 spot.
I loved Electrek early on. It was a fresh air reporting on everything renewable and EV. Now I consider it the whore of the news. Tesla could do no wrong five years ago. Now everything they touch is a disaster. That especially sucks because their cause is noble. HN’s sentiment toward Tesla has turned sour so Elektrek’s articles get upvoted more. Objectivity is overrated.
Tesla (and Elon) are responsible for bringing on the EV age, and forcing the trend on legacy manufacturers. Anyone who says otherwise is uninformed or dishonest.
That being said, their (one trick) pony has done it's trick, and now it's just promises that the pony will do progressively more crazy tricks if you just give it a little more time.
Just look at any headline they put out about Tesla. They phrase every article in the most negative light possible and mostly seem to report only negative events about the company.
>Tesla’s ‘Robotaxi’ expansion looks like another stock pump before earnings
>Tesla’s California sales crash 24% as state’s EV market plunges to lowest since 2021
>Tesla’s head of customer experience leaves for Coinbase as talent exodus grows
Even benign announcements are phrased in a negative light:
>Tesla launches ‘Robotaxi’ in Houston and Dallas with tiny geofences
Going out of their way to say the initial area for Dallas is “tiny”. You can imagine that a few years ago when they still liked Tesla they would have reported this story much differently.
The earnings call is basically an event to announce that they've published their 10-Q report. The report says:
> "In April 2026, the Company entered into an agreement to acquire an AI hardware company for up to $2.00 billion in Tesla common stock and equity awards, of which approximately $1.8 billion is subject to certain service conditions and/or performance milestones dependent on the successful deployment of the company’s technology."
That's not quiet or sneaky in any way.
The article says:
> The fact that Tesla discussed the $2 billion SpaceX investment extensively in the shareholders' letter but didn't mention an equally-sized acquisition is a deliberate choice.
The existence and content of the report is all that matters, you can emphasize or ignore anything you want in the press release.
Has any company ever buried such a large acquisition in its filings without disclosing the acquired company prior? I cannot recall any off the top of my head.
> Is it legal? The whole point of earnings call...
You might be shocked to find out, as I was, that earnings call are not even legally required. Companies are legally required to make SEC filings and that's it.
> "for up to $2.00 billion [...] of which approximately $1.8 billion is subject to certain service conditions and/or performance milestones dependent on the successful deployment of the company’s technology."
> The deal structure offers a few clues. Only $200 million of the up to $2 billion total is guaranteed — the remaining $1.8 billion is tied to service conditions and performance milestones.
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/20/elon-musk-says-teslas-rest...
In April 2026, the Company entered into an agreement to acquire an AI hardware company for up to $2.00 billion in Tesla common stock and equity awards, of which approximately $1.8 billion is subject to certain service conditions and/or performance milestones dependent on the successful deployment of the company's technology.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1318605/000162828026...
Can we vote to ban an adverb?
This electrek site frequently comes up in my Firefox news feed and they seem to have made a business of breathless reporting news about Tesla with a negative spin.
I am not sure what term you use for having people work on your behalf according to the terms of a contract and then not paying the agreed upon compensation, but "theft" or "steal" would be the colloquial term. Only the intentionally biased would claim a trillion dollar company not paying fans for their work in accordance with their own contract is not "stealing" in common parlance.
I am sorry I was downplaying Tesla's bad behavior by just highlighting that individual fans were jilted out of hundreds of thousands of dollars of their work instead of pointing out how they screwed hundreds of their most loyal fans out of tens of millions of dollars of earned compensation. Anything other than praise for such a upstanding company is unwarranted and smearing their victims is the only unbiased move.
[1] https://electrek.co/2019/01/17/tesla-roadster-free-killed-re...
It trades at a 360 p/e with annually shrinking finances. None of it's blockbuster promises have come to fruition, and it keeps on faux chasing hype products to keep shares buoyant. Nevermind all the shady accounting and and notorious opaque data sharing that has cropped up in the last few years.
It has had three success stories which are all pretty banal (model S, model 3, model Y), and has a litany of perpetually "just around the corner" products that will fill those massive 360 p/e shoes and then way more. FSD, roadster, semi, model 2, robotaxi, optimus robot, and now terafab. All vaporware that is indefinitely pending, and seem perfectly crafted to tickle the mind of "the internet IQ test said I'm a genius" type investors.
It then has it's meh business of battery production and storage, which does alright for what it is, but even still is now borderline noncompetitive with Chinese offerings.
So if electrek is going hard against Tesla...it kind of makes sense?
That aside though, in total sales, BYD is selling 2.5x the amount of EVs.
Tesla ranked 9th, behind Toyota and Volkswagen for total sales in Feb and March.
Globally, Tesla has a tight lineup, so there is only one SUV choice. Other brands outsell Tesla model Y, but it's splintered across their many offerings in the SUV space. Tesla really wants you to know that the model Y is the top selling car globally. They don't want you to know that other SUV brands outsell them, but in the form of many different models.
This is exactly the kind of nonsesne flexing I am referring to that comes out of Tesla for the last few years. Things that on the surface seem "wow", but underneath are just shady or misdirection.
Care to give counter examples?
Tesla (and Elon) are responsible for bringing on the EV age, and forcing the trend on legacy manufacturers. Anyone who says otherwise is uninformed or dishonest.
That being said, their (one trick) pony has done it's trick, and now it's just promises that the pony will do progressively more crazy tricks if you just give it a little more time.
>Tesla’s ‘Robotaxi’ expansion looks like another stock pump before earnings
>Tesla’s California sales crash 24% as state’s EV market plunges to lowest since 2021
>Tesla’s head of customer experience leaves for Coinbase as talent exodus grows
Even benign announcements are phrased in a negative light:
>Tesla launches ‘Robotaxi’ in Houston and Dallas with tiny geofences
Going out of their way to say the initial area for Dallas is “tiny”. You can imagine that a few years ago when they still liked Tesla they would have reported this story much differently.
These are headlines with Fox News level of bias.
Is it legal? The whole point of earnings call is to disclose such events to [potential] shareholders.
> "In April 2026, the Company entered into an agreement to acquire an AI hardware company for up to $2.00 billion in Tesla common stock and equity awards, of which approximately $1.8 billion is subject to certain service conditions and/or performance milestones dependent on the successful deployment of the company’s technology."
That's not quiet or sneaky in any way.
The article says:
> The fact that Tesla discussed the $2 billion SpaceX investment extensively in the shareholders' letter but didn't mention an equally-sized acquisition is a deliberate choice.
The existence and content of the report is all that matters, you can emphasize or ignore anything you want in the press release.
Has any company ever buried such a large acquisition in its filings without disclosing the acquired company prior? I cannot recall any off the top of my head.
You might be shocked to find out, as I was, that earnings call are not even legally required. Companies are legally required to make SEC filings and that's it.
so it could be as well just 200 million.
> The deal structure offers a few clues. Only $200 million of the up to $2 billion total is guaranteed — the remaining $1.8 billion is tied to service conditions and performance milestones.