Zhao Chen and Shen Zhiyi met Elon Musk in an empty hangar of Cape Canaveral Launch Site.
The hangar is so empty that you can hear the sound of waves crashing against the breakwater in the distance.
Elon Musk was sitting in front of an iron table with mottled weld marks. The collar of the gray T-shirt he was wearing was washed a little loosely.
He looked like he hadn't slept well in days.
"Elon, SpaceX stock, I want to pledge it."
Zhao Chen sat down opposite him without any preparation.
Elon Musk's fingers stopped on the iron table.
After a few seconds of silence, he raised his head. There was no surprise in his eyes, only the coldness of having to face reality after being forced into a corner.
"Zhao, I'm sorry to tell you, this is difficult.
I am not the only one who has the final say on SpaceX's LLC Operating Agreement.
Any equity pledge must be approved by Board of Directors - you know this is no excuse. Shareholders have tried it before and been rejected, more than once.
They regard SpaceX as the last bastion, and any external organization that interferes will be rejected."
"Then don't pledge SpaceX."
Zhao Chen's voice was not high, but every word was like a nail on the iron table between the two of them.
"Then I will change my plan. Era Vanguard will directly increase its holdings of Tesla's stocks--"
"Increase holdings?" Elon Musk's brows suddenly knitted together.
He knew only too well what the suggestion meant--
Once Era Vanguard crosses that red line, the 13D declaration will leak their position plan to all Wall Street like a sieve.
He opened his mouth and was about to interrupt when Zhao Chen raised his hand to silence him.
"--After increasing my holdings, I still don't seek any Board of Directors Seat, and I don't interfere in any business decisions. I have the final say."
The hangar became quiet. The low-frequency current sound from a test bench in the distance suddenly became very clear.
Elon Musk lowered his eyes and was silent for a long time. Then he took a long breath and spoke very slowly when he spoke again.
"Zhao, to tell you the truth, if it had been before, I wouldn't have agreed."
He said, "I don't trust at least four of the six Major Shareholder.
They just want to force me to make a profit and force me to give up my vision of Mars colonization.
You know how much I hate Short Sellers now, and how much I hate those external shareholders who are lying in Board of Directors and telling me what to do."
He stared closely at Zhao Chen,
"I trust you, but trust should not exceed the constraints of the system.
If I agree with you to break through 9.9%, after Short Sellers retreats and the stock price returns to normal, you or any future successor,
One day I sat in my Board of Directors chair and told me how Model 4 should be priced--
The trust between you and me will be replaced by terms and voting rights at that moment.
At that moment, the trust between you and me will be replaced by the right to vote. This is the last thing I want to see."
He paused, as if waiting for a rebuttal, but Zhao Chen did not interrupt.
"That's why I resent any outside shareholder taking too big a shareholding."
He raised his head, looked through the half-open door of the hangar, and looked at the faintly flashing launch tower marker lights on the horizon in the distance.
"A few shareholders even went behind my back to persuade investment banks to say that the company should be privatized. It took me two full years to recover from that crisis.
When Tesla needed support the most, they just wanted to dismantle the company and sell parts. So 9.9% is not your threshold - it is my boundary of trust."
He turned his head and looked straight at Zhao Chen.
Zhao Chen There is no avoidance.
He seemed to be weighing the edge of the blade before dissecting the vulture.
"I understand. This is why I was stuck at 9.9% in the past and never spoke to you once.
What you fear is that external shareholders will stab you when you are at your weakest.
But I am not an outside shareholder - the outside shareholders' money is used to stretch the company like a rubber band, and when it rebounds, they arbitrage and leave.
Era Vanguard has bought 16.6 million shares of Pledged Shares. The stock price fell from 360 to 200. I didn't run.
Did not reduce holdings, did not move positions, did not treat Tesla as a hot potato.
If I were an ordinary external shareholder, I should have exited the market as early as when it fell below 250--
But I didn't, because we are not external investors, we are the people who create dreams with you.
I know you hate it when the person signing the engine drawing doesn't even understand compression ratio.
In the past few years, have I ever interfered with Tesla's business decisions?"
The two looked at each other, and the light in the hangar whittled their outlines into two sharp knives.
After a few seconds, Elon Musk leaned back into the iron chair. This time, his voice was less aggressive and had something else in it.
"So this rule can be made an exception in history."
He paused,
"But the question now is - do you have money? I don't mean you had money before.
I mean you just took all the cash and pledged it.
People at Wall Street are saying that your liquidity has dried up. They want to dig out every bank statement and slap it under the same Twitter to mock Era Vanguard for not being able to survive this weekend.
Apple has cleared its position. SpaceX's stocks cannot be pledged. I'm not polite. I need to know if you really still have bullets."
Zhao Chen Lean back in your chair.
When he said this, his voice was not high, but he spoke every word without comment.
"You never ask for help, and neither do I.
Short Sellers thought that SpaceX's equity was the last wall blocking me, so I let them continue to think so.
I don't need to hide bullets, my bullets are myself."
He put his hands on the table, leaned forward slightly, and lowered his voice to a level that only two people could hear.
"As long as you tell me - this time, you will no longer object to my increasing my holdings of Tesla."
Elon Musk stared into his eyes.
After a moment, he suddenly smiled, the kind of smile that appears when one engineer is convinced by another engineer with fatigue, relief.
"Do you know how long I have been waiting for this day? There were three things that bothered me the most:
Being interfered with in product decisions by shareholders, being publicly humiliated by investment banks, and Short Sellers lying outside Tesla's factory betting that we would go bankrupt every quarter. None of them are missing."
He said, "But the people sitting across from me now don't occupy any of them."
He stood up and placed the engineer's right hand, which was covered with calluses and slight metal scratches, on the table.
"Okay. Just go to Secondary Market to increase your holdings of Tesla stocks.
Along the way, Short Sellers owes me a lot, and you happen to be the opponent they least want to see."
Hearing Elon Musk's agreement, Zhao Chen breathed a sigh of relief.
He almost risked the reputation of betrayal before he made up his mind to fight to the death with Short Sellers. If Elon Musk rejected it, then he would lose more than he gained.