2022 was Tesla’s best year ever, but not for its stock (TSLA), and investors are not happy

2022 was undoubtedly Tesla’s best year ever financially and for vehicle deliveries, but it has not been for its stock (TSLA), and now investors are unhappy and telling the board about it.

If you were to just look at Tesla’s quarterly reports this year, you would think that Tesla shareholders are having a great year.

The automaker is delivering record earnings after record earnings, with deliveries going up and annualized production capacity nearing two million vehicles per year – more than any other automakers when it comes to all-electric vehicles.

It looks like Tesla’s vision is finally coming together.

Yet, you have retail investors like Leo KoGuan, a billionaire who is the third-largest Tesla shareholder, calling Tesla’s board of directors “missing in action”:

We first reported on KoGuan last year when he became the third largest individual shareholder in Tesla behind Elon Musk and Larry Ellison. In September, we were able to confirm that he put more money into Tesla (TSLA) than Elon Musk himself.

He, along with many other prominent Tesla investors, is calling for Tesla’s board to initiate a share buyback program.

That’s because Tesla’s stock is down almost 50% since the beginning of the year:

Now the broader market also had a bad year, but Tesla is definitely having a worse go at it than its peers with the Nasdaq being down 29% over the same period. A lot of the discrepancy has been attributed to CEO Elon Musk who sold tens of billions of dollars worth of Tesla stock over the last year.

Tesla talked about a potential $5 to $10 billion share buyback program back in October, but there has been no official word on the plan since.

Now Tesla retail investors, including KoGuan, have been campaigning for Musk to comment on Twitter about the situation, but the CEO has remained silent.

As for KoGuan, he is seemingly growing frustrated with the lack of response:

But the third largest Tesla shareholder remains positive about the company long term as he states that he plans to invest an additional $2 billion into the automaker over the next three years.

In the meantime, the Tesla shorts, after years of getting burned, are finally making some money back.

S3 Partners, a firm tracking short interest, confirmed this week that Tesla shorts have made up to $11.5 billion by betting against Tesla’s stock this year.

But who is going to have the last laugh? Do you think a stock buyback program will be enough to stop the bleeding? Let us know in the comment section below.