Executives, boards of directors, etc in corporations also have fiduciary obligations to their shareholders. They are obligated to act in shareholder's best interests, controls costs to the best of their abilities, and maximize revenue to the best of their abilities.
We can question strategy and all that, and I think prudent shareholders should always have opinions on that stuff, but the idea that Tesla isn't trying to make as much money as possible -- that would be a breach of their obligations to investors.
As someone with decades of background experience in corporate fiduciary trust, it behooves me to temper that statement with nuance. What you write is true in general, but with either hundreds or, more likely, thousands of court cases - and uncountable numbers of pre-court settlements - having demonstrated, there is immense latitude Boards of Directors for USA corporations have to exercise such obligations.
* WHAT is the "best interest" of the shareholders? For what fraction of them? Which kinds - institutional, individual, long-term, short-term, etc.? What about non-shareholding "stakeholders": owners of its corporate bonds; employees; local populace; associated municipal etc. political entities; salamanders, spotted owls and polka-dotted unicorns, and so forth?
* HOW MUCH oversight is appropriate for attaining the goals of controlling costs? When does Board macromanaging...managing...micromanaging cross the line from being feckless to being appropriate to being efficiency-undermining meddling?
*MAXIMIZING REVENUE is a goal for...when? For this quarter? For the remainder of the senior managements' days to the full vesting of their Golden Parachutes? For the hereafter?
*HOW best for the Board to balance maximizing revenue vs. maximizing profits? Again: for what time interval? Determining what ratio of the balance sheet as retained profits vs to shareholder dividends? Spending...how much?...time determining how aggressively to assuage Wall St. entities so that its stock price enhances its ability at...which?...future date to raise capital?
And, most specifically in the case of Tesla Inc:
The early declaration, promulgation and subsequent refinements of its Corporate Mission. Tesla is close to unique in having shared with all stakeholders its Mission as, distilled, being the salvation of the planet and of humanity - corporeal if not spiritual. In my own ongoing
gedankenexperiment as imagining myself a member of the Board, I cannot but hold that Mission is such a long-term project that I must provide it as much flexibility - far, far more than the norm - in fulfilling that laudable goal as I can. And that will, necessarily, subject to maintaining the company's financial well-being (ie, a strong balance sheet), override or at the least diminish to inconsequence, effectively all merely pecuniary objectives.
If you got all that, then answer this question: Would you
really want to be a member of Tesla's Board?
on edit: @Growler, the time it took for me to craft the above meant your well-written post preceded mine. Good…other than that THOSE OF US WHO ARE SHAREHOLDERS ARE the beneficiaries for whom the Board is the fiduciary. But I understand your sentiments.