I’ve Got A Golden Ticket!

So there I was a few nights ago, it was our third evening in a local hotel. We were worn out from dealing with contractors, living out of suitcases, and generally having our lives turned upside down from extensive home renovations. But this was all of our own doing so we didn’t have anyone to blame but ourselves.

I settled in to watch a little TV around eight o’clock and decided to check my email before we pressed play to watch an episode of Black Rabbit on Netflix (which is excellent, btw). It was then that I saw it towards the very top of my inbox.

I opened the email but still didn’t quite believe my eyes. I’ve learned these tickets are extremely hard to get but by some stroke of luck I managed to get a pair.

As you can see from the message, the message says to RSVP. Now, the thing was there were no instructions on exactly how or where to RSVP. The email came from “[email protected]” so I knew I couldn’t just respond with “Count me in!”. Tesla wasn’t going to make it that easy.

I scrubbed the internet for about a half an hour but could find nothing about it. As a last ditch effort I decided just to tap the image itself—sure enough that image was a hyperlink to the Tesla 2025 Shareholder Meeting RSVP page. Leave it to Tesla to throw a puzzle at us to see if we were worthy. In retrospect, that part added a fun element to it all. It felt like a real quest.

So, I agreed to all the fine print, entered my brother’s name and email address as my “+1” and hit “enter”! A few minutes later I got the response above which included the disclaimer, “This is a limited capacity event, but we will send a confirmation email once we've confirmed attendance numbers.” The question that was then rattling around my head was, Does this mean I’m guaranteed tickets or not?

After a conversation with YouTuber, Bearded Tesla Guy, who's been to the event several times, it seems that if you get that first email you’re all but guaranteed to receive two tickets if you RSVP. He said that typically you don’t get the final confirmation until the day before the event. Odd, but okay. So, if this is true, I’ll get final confirmation and credentials as I’m hurdling through the air towards Austin on November 5th.

At that point I felt like Charlie from Willy Wonka! I got a golden ticket! I then felt confident enough to lock in hotel and airline reservations—and I’m glad I did. I booked a double room at the Hyatt Hotel at the Austin airport and there were only a handful of rooms left. The hotel is about four miles from Tesla’s GigaTexas Factory, where the meeting will take place.

My brother and I made this pact about a month ago that we’d both request tickets and whoever won would invite the other as their “+1”. My brother has far more shares of Tesla than I do so I assumed he’d get the invite but that wasn’t the case. I could tell Tesla employees were checking out my online presence over the past few weeks because I got the notification from LinkedIn so the only thing I can figure is they saw some of the favorable things I’ve written about the company and my Tesla Model 3 in the past few years.

To say I’m excited is an understatement. This meeting will be a once-in-a-lifetime event. It will likely be the last Annual Shareholder’s Meeting before the Optimus robot hits the market and makes Tesla the most valuable company on the planet. This year’s meeting is rumored to have a large demonstration of the Optimus, rides in the yet to be released Tesla Roadster (0-60MPH in under a second), and face time with upper management. Since the RoboTaxi network is up and running in Austin I should have a chance to try that for the first time as well.

November 5th through the 8th should be a few epic days for the record book for this nerd (me). I’m going to bring a few copies of my Sci-Fi novel Alarm Clock Dawn. If I get to meet Elon you’d better believe I’m going to shoot my shot and try to get a copy of the novel into his hands. The story is in alignment with his mission after all. Hopefully this doesn’t get me escorted out by security.

In exactly eighteen days I’ll be boarding a very early Delta flight to Austin, blurry-eyed but caffeinated, feeling like the luckiest guy in the world.

I'll do my best to chronicle the experience as best I can for Hive.

All for now. Thanks for reading.