By now we’re all aware of the outcome following Elon Musk’s recent shareholder vote to both approve his whopping $56 billion pay package (and subsequent plan to reincorporate in Texas). While there’s still a long way to go legally, the vote pushes Musk’s beneficial ownership of Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) from about 13% to 20.5%, though this still falls a tad shy of his 25% ownership goal. The question, now, on many investors’ minds is “Which stocks to buy now?”
While the first stock on the list won’t surprise you, picking other stocks to buy on the news is less easy. You’d generally expect a rising tide to lift all boats (stocks) associated with Musk, but, of course, Tesla remains his sole public company today – SpaceX, X, Neuralink, et al. are all private companies and even his other former public properties like SolarCity are rolled up under other company umbrellas.
That isn’t to say there’s no chance of catching some marginal upside — it just means you may have to dig a little deeper to find stocks to buy in light of the news.
Tesla (TSLA)
Tesla is the clear winner of Musk’s major pay package win, as the ownership stake increase reduces key man risk for the company, or the widely-expected potential of Musk losing interest in the company in favor of others, or even moving hot properties like robotics and artificial intelligence initiatives to other business interests.
Already Musk is proving the thesis true, publicly floating the idea of an uber-affordable Tesla Model Y priced around $20,000 and exploring the unit economics, saying that “it would sell like five million units.” However, he amended the statement somewhat as “that’s not feasible today.”
Still, even if Musk has a history of big-picture plans that take longer than anticipated to roll out, his renewed focus on Tesla is a big deal for shareholders, even if the stock didn’t surge quite as high as many expected, largely because Musk’s newfound wealth is ultimately dilutive to shareholders. While Cathie Wood’s $2,600 expected value for Tesla shares may be overblown, this stock is definitely the top beneficiary of Musk’s big win last week.
Nvidia (NVDA)
Musk is adamant about his vision of artificial intelligence, but that enthusiasm also posed a problem before the pay package approval. A handful of investors filed suit against Musk last week, charging the Tesla CEO with improper use of existing Tesla tech. Specifically, they pointed to a perceived “diversion of Tesla’s value to xAI and X, as he alone has made decisions to redirect talent, resources, and valuable GPUs to those competitors.”
While mitigating key man risk, coupled with the lawsuit, may force Musk’s hand to re-divert those resources to Tesla, Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) is among the stocks to buy to capitalize on Elon’s AI focus in either case.
Musk is a massive buyer of Nvidia hardware already, and a renewed centrality of his AI emphasis toward Tesla may accelerate the purchasing as Tesla has quite a bit more cash in its coffers than X (presumably) has, though determining to what extent is tough since X isn’t required to post financials. Still, Musk already affirmed a ballpark $3 – $4 billion in net Tesla expenditure on Nvidia products this year, so expect the already massive chipmaker to continue reaping the rewards moving forward.
Tripadvisor (TRIP)
Tripadvisor (NASDAQ:TRIP) may seem an unlikely pick among stocks to buy if you want to capitalize on Musk’s shareholder vote win, but it’s peripherally very important. Remember that, in addition to the pay package, shareholders voted to reincorporate away from Delaware following a judge’s apparent activist attitude toward corporate governance. The initial ruling included the judge calling the previously approved payment structure “unfathomable.”
However, Tripadvisor paved the way for Tesla in this respect, even if many don’t know about it. In February, the travel company tried to divest itself from Delaware in a bid to move to Nevada. Though two-thirds of shareholders approved the move, minority shareholders sued (in Delaware) to prevent the pivot.
Essentially, the argument boiled down to the fact that Delaware corporate law “protects investors through a combination of statutory provisions and common law fiduciary duties” but that allowing “a stockholder controller [to] reduce the rights investors enjoy by changing the corporation’s domicile” would be a breach of that duty. In other words, all investors matter, even the little guys, and the litigant’s position demanded Delaware ensure maximal benefit to the individual and select shareholder rights.
That didn’t pan out, and Delaware judge J. Travis Laster declined to move the suit forward (though they can still sue for monetary damages). In other words, Tripadvisor wrote the playbook for Musk moving forward and provides valuable precedent to keep the reincorporation plan rolling.
On the date of publication, Jeremy Flint held no positions in the securities mentioned. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.