TSLA - Tesla Motors

[fareastwarriors]

Elon going nutty on Twitter.

 

He tweets that the stock price is too high when it's at a price level a lot of retail investors bought his stock in a secondary offering less than 3 months ago.

 

Must be the drugs talking.

 

Given all the activity this AM, most likely the account is hacked.

 

Other CEOS maybe, but with Elon you just never know. *shrugs*

[Pauly]

Elon going nutty on Twitter.

 

He tweets that the stock price is too high when it's at a price level a lot of retail investors bought his stock in a secondary offering less than 3 months ago.

 

Must be the drugs talking.

 

Given all the activity this AM, most likely the account is hacked.

 

Other CEOS maybe, but with Elon you just never know. *shrugs*

 

With Elon I`d say it`s more likely drugs than a hack.

 

It`s funny, Elon is both a big reason to invest in TSLA, and a big reason to avoid it.

 

[Jurgis]

It`s funny, Elon is both a big reason to invest in TSLA, and a big reason to avoid it.

 

This.

[Liberty]

Elon going nutty on Twitter.

 

He tweets that the stock price is too high when it's at a price level a lot of retail investors bought his stock in a secondary offering less than 3 months ago.

 

Must be the drugs talking.

 

2013: https://money.cnn.com/2013/10/25/investing/tesla-netflix-momentum-stocks/

 

As for people buying the stock at whatever price, caveat emptor, as usual. Are most CEOs warning shareholders not to buy their stocks when they're overvalued? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

I've seen Mark Leonard do this. Doesn't mean he was right (if you had sold the stock when he said this, it would've been a bad move).

[mloub]

Elon's life definitely seems to be mirroring that of the original Tesla in some painful ways. Elon's financial backers might want to take a second look at JP Morgan's -the man, not the firm's - dealings with the original Tesla. Financially backing unstable geniuses has its own unique set of risks.

 

Understanding the Nikola Tesla story helped me put Elon's prolific output - the Boring Company, SpaceX, Starlink, and Tesla the auto maker - and bizarre behaviour into some context. Amazing minds can achieve amazing things, but that does not always translate into financial success.

 

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-rise-and-fall-of-nikola-tesla-and-his-tower-11074324/

 

M.

 

EDIT: Forgot to add Neuralink, and Hyperloop to the list of Elon Musk's projects.

 

[fareastwarriors]

Elon going nutty on Twitter.

 

He tweets that the stock price is too high when it's at a price level a lot of retail investors bought his stock in a secondary offering less than 3 months ago.

 

Must be the drugs talking.

 

2013: https://money.cnn.com/2013/10/25/investing/tesla-netflix-momentum-stocks/

 

As for people buying the stock at whatever price, caveat emptor, as usual. Are most CEOs warning shareholders not to buy their stocks when they're overvalued? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

I've seen Mark Leonard do this. Doesn't mean he was right (if you had sold the stock when he said this, it would've been a bad move).

 

CEO of Zoom , Eric Yuan, said multiple times their stock price is "ridiculous" and "too high." 

 

I like him.

[arcube]

Elon going nutty on Twitter.

 

He tweets that the stock price is too high when it's at a price level a lot of retail investors bought his stock in a secondary offering less than 3 months ago.

 

Must be the drugs talking.

 

2013: https://money.cnn.com/2013/10/25/investing/tesla-netflix-momentum-stocks/

 

As for people buying the stock at whatever price, caveat emptor, as usual. Are most CEOs warning shareholders not to buy their stocks when they're overvalued? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

I've seen Mark Leonard do this. Doesn't mean he was right (if you had sold the stock when he said this, it would've been a bad move).

 

CEO of Zoom , Eric Yuan, said multiple times their stock price is "ridiculous" and "too high." 

 

I like him.

 

Just too much stress for the guy. New baby coming on Monday, girlfriend being a PITA and then the whole manned launch this month. Only he can do it. We will get through this. Added more.

 

Also, not to forget the lockdown that is bothering him.

[Libs]

Elon's life definitely seems to be mirroring that of the original Tesla in some painful ways. Elon's financial backers might want to take a second look at JP Morgan's -the man, not the firm's - dealings with the original Tesla. Financially backing unstable geniuses has its own unique set of risks.

 

Understanding the Nikola Tesla story helped me put Elon's prolific output - the Boring Company, SpaceX, Starlink, and Tesla the auto maker - into some context. Amazing minds can achieve amazing things, but that does not always translate into financial success.

 

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-rise-and-fall-of-nikola-tesla-and-his-tower-11074324/

 

Given how the original Tesla crashed and burned, in my darker moments I've wondered if Musk used the Tesla name as a sick premonition / joke.

 

His account was hacked or he's on mushrooms today. He said he will sell all his possessions, including his houses; cited the Star Spangled Banner, then "rage, rage against the dying light of consciousness" and finally something about his GF being mad at him.

 

I truly love Elon Musk. I mean it.

 

M.

[benhacker]

I hope we get this thread to 1000 pages before it all ends on a margin call that “no one could have seen coming”.

[jmp8822]

Elon going nutty on Twitter.

 

He tweets that the stock price is too high when it's at a price level a lot of retail investors bought his stock in a secondary offering less than 3 months ago.

 

Must be the drugs talking.

 

Given all the activity this AM, most likely the account is hacked.

 

What planet are we living on where the current long thesis says, 'it can't be this bad, I'm sure something is up, his account must have been hacked'. So will you sell when you find out his account wasn't hacked?  Do you realize this same individual tweeted out the biggest fake buyout in history?

[Guest jalebijim]

"Compounding machine" Sorry, I do not consider Munger, Soros, Dalio etc great humans. They are great poker players and very good at collecting money/pieces of paper.

 

There is a big difference between making penicillin or making cars and borrowing money to buy stock after the company is public. Buffet and Munger never built anything tangible. They are just greedy, a lot of people drool over them because they are rich.

 

True heroes are people who work every day to make people's lives better, currently the people trying to make a cure for COVID, not some old man in Omaha hoarding cash.

 

This is stupid take. It shows a lack of imagination. That's like saying that Steve Jobs never built anything because he was an idea man and mostly built a company and teams and high level strategy and then said what he liked and disliked about ideas others brought to him.

 

There are many ways to contribute, and if you care about consequences of actions at all, then creating philanthropies that will save millions, do R&D that is being ignored by others, etc, has a much bigger impact than a lot of inventors who have a few patents to their names.

 

Sir lets not insult each other.

 

Please read Jobs biography him and Waz built the first computers and sold them together. Jobs was a BUILDER, like Elon.

 

Soros, Munger, Buffet--Capital allocators/poker players.

 

I'm not insulting you, I'm saying your argument is stupid, which isn't the same thing. I've also said and believed stupid things over the years, but it doesn't mean that I'm stupid.

 

How many Jobs bios have you read? I know a fair bit about him (The Isaacson bio is mediocre, btw, mostly because Isaacson doesn't understand computer technology or design, the things at the center of Jobs' life -- what a wasted opportunity it was to give him all those exclusive interviews. For modern bios, the Brent Schlender one is better). Yes, he used to code a little, etc. But the vast majority of Jobs' lifetime contributions weren't writing code or directly creating hardware or software, that's not even arguable. He's a builder, he built a company with ideas and decisions. Just like Buffett built a company and a philanthropic legacy as large as anyone's and will have one of the largest impacts on the world of any living people today with ideas and decisions. He's spent most of his life building a company, Berkshire, that employees about 400,000 people, and his good leadership and decisions have a very real impact on the life of all these people and all the pension funds and such invested in it (on top of philantropy) -- ask GE employees and investors if they'd rather have had good leadership like Buffett?

 

Your take is still stupid.

 

 

Again, let's not call each other names. Surely we are mature enough to make points without resorting to name calling.

 

I read all the biographies on Jobs. He was a builder who started Apple out of his garage selling circuit boards and built many great businesses. Was fascinated with technology/HP and that is why called one of the founders at home for computer parts. Jobs never much cared about money, just wanted to build great things.

 

Buffet is a very smart greedy old man. One of the first books buffet ever read was how to make money and his father was a stock broker.

 

Buffet never built anything, he sees great businesses and products others have built and buys them because he thinks he can make more money. Pure greed. Buffet does not build the business or run any of them, keeps existing managers in place and just controls the capital. He famously says he does not have any input on most businesses. I read most of Buffet biographies also.

[nodnub]

Thanks for the posts JalebiJim. Interesting perspective. I agree: risk-takers and dreamers that build new businesses based on new ideas create a lot of value for the world (however many of them destroy value too - IMO the world would be better place without K-cup coffee pods filling up landfills).

 

Liberty, I value many of your posts. I do think keeping our discussion more civil improves the quality of debate on this board. It's a fine line between vigorous debate and insulting language, one that other posters here frequently cross.

 

 

[fareastwarriors]

I hope we get this thread to 1000 pages before it all ends on a margin call that “no one could have seen coming”.

 

Sears thread has nearly 10k replies. We have a lot more to go...

[rb]

Thanks for the posts JalebiJim. Interesting perspective. I agree: risk-takers and dreamers that build new businesses based on new ideas create a lot of value for the world (however many of them destroy value too - IMO the world would be better place without K-cup coffee pods filling up landfills).

 

Liberty, I value many of your posts. I do think keeping our discussion more civil improves the quality of debate on this board. It's a fine line between vigorous debate and insulting language, one that other posters here frequently cross.

Jesus! That was insulting language? That something is a stupid idea or a stupid take? Did that hurt somebody's feelings? Should it be phrased more like "I really value your input but I think you have made some errors in your assumptions."? Would that be better? Are we feeling ok now? Everybody soothed now?

 

This is an investment board. These are the capital markets. It's a full contact sport. They are brutal and don't care about your feelings. If you can't handle someone calling one of your ideas stupid, this is probably not your gig. If you want to make money in this business you better "sack up". And no, that's not a misogynistic take, it's a figure of speech. The moment they come up with the female version, I'll use that as well. In the meantime I guess the people that can't take it will have t find their "happy place".

 

For the record, in this business i've worked with plenty of really talented women. None of them would generally get bent out of shape cause someone called one of their ideas/thoughts stupid. Caveat: level of seniority and knowing what you talk about matters

[Liberty]

Again, let's not call each other names. Surely we are mature enough to make points without resorting to name calling.

 

I read all the biographies on Jobs. He was a builder who started Apple out of his garage selling circuit boards and built many great businesses. Was fascinated with technology/HP and that is why called one of the founders at home for computer parts. Jobs never much cared about money, just wanted to build great things.

 

Buffet is a very smart greedy old man. One of the first books buffet ever read was how to make money and his father was a stock broker.

 

Buffet never built anything, he sees great businesses and products others have built and buys them because he thinks he can make more money. Pure greed. Buffet does not build the business or run any of them, keeps existing managers in place and just controls the capital. He famously says he does not have any input on most businesses. I read most of Buffet biographies also.

 

Again, I didn't call you names. Again, your take is stupid. Buffett built one of the largest and most successful companies in the world providing livelihood to hundreds of thousands, he created a whole school of thought in investing, and will have helped saved millions of lives and develop medicines and technologies that help the world's most vulnerable when all is said and done (who knows how many if you count his influence on others with the giving pledge).

 

Again, you skip over what I said: Yes Jobs started there, but that's not where 99% of his life was spent, including at Pixar or NeXt. He was an editor, an idea man, a strategist, an inspirational leader, a marketer, etc. Not an engineer or designer making things directly (with some exceptions). That in no way diminishes what Jobs did. My point is that there's more than one way to create things, and how Buffett and Jobs did it is just as real as other ways.

 

Your characterization of Buffett is incredibly superficial, just like your characterization of Jobs. You don't seem to understand what you're talking about very much.

[Liberty]

Thanks for the posts JalebiJim. Interesting perspective. I agree: risk-takers and dreamers that build new businesses based on new ideas create a lot of value for the world (however many of them destroy value too - IMO the world would be better place without K-cup coffee pods filling up landfills).

 

Liberty, I value many of your posts. I do think keeping our discussion more civil improves the quality of debate on this board. It's a fine line between vigorous debate and insulting language, one that other posters here frequently cross.

 

If you can't tell the difference between saying that someone is stupid and saying that something that was said was stupid, you're going to have a hard time on the internet.

 

If someone says the Earth is flat or that Bill Gates secretly conspired to create SARS-Cov2 (somehow with 5G cell towers), I'll say that's a stupid claim. Is that insulting too? Well, this here wasn't as bad, but it was still stupid enough that I felt like calling it out.

[Dalal.Holdings]

Elon going nutty on Twitter.

 

He tweets that the stock price is too high when it's at a price level a lot of retail investors bought his stock in a secondary offering less than 3 months ago.

 

Must be the drugs talking.

 

Given all the activity this AM, most likely the account is hacked.

 

What planet are we living on where the current long thesis says, 'it can't be this bad, I'm sure something is up, his account must have been hacked'. So will you sell when you find out his account wasn't hacked?  Do you realize this same individual tweeted out the biggest fake buyout in history?

 

I'm not really invested in this like I used to be, but my "long thesis" never really concerned itself with the CEO's twitter account.

 

If I wanted a polished CEO, I would have bought GE, F, GM, BA, IBM, etc (in fact at some point in time I did buy some of these names).

 

Instead, I vastly prefer an exceptionally talented CEO.

 

For the sake of this country (America), I hope he's ok and back to work soon.

[Guest jalebijim]

Again, let's not call each other names. Surely we are mature enough to make points without resorting to name calling.

 

I read all the biographies on Jobs. He was a builder who started Apple out of his garage selling circuit boards and built many great businesses. Was fascinated with technology/HP and that is why called one of the founders at home for computer parts. Jobs never much cared about money, just wanted to build great things.

 

Buffet is a very smart greedy old man. One of the first books buffet ever read was how to make money and his father was a stock broker.

 

Buffet never built anything, he sees great businesses and products others have built and buys them because he thinks he can make more money. Pure greed. Buffet does not build the business or run any of them, keeps existing managers in place and just controls the capital. He famously says he does not have any input on most businesses. I read most of Buffet biographies also.

 

Again, I didn't call you names. Again, your take is stupid. Buffett built one of the largest and most successful companies in the world providing livelihood to hundreds of thousands, he created a whole school of thought in investing, and will have helped saved millions of lives and develop medicines and technologies that help the world's most vulnerable when all is said and done (who knows how many if you count his influence on others with the giving pledge).

 

 

Your characterization of Buffett is incredibly superficial, just like your characterization of Jobs. You don't seem to understand what you're talking about very much.

 

 

We mostly agree about Jobs. He had the mind of an engineer and of course when you have a trillion dollar company he is not going to be assembling phones and doing all the leg work himself. He is going to be using the leverage of others to make great things and contribute to society. Just like Elon is not going be assembling cars on the factory floor now.

 

Buffet on the other hand is a genius financial leech. He sits on a wall waiting for companies to have financial difficulty or be at a good price and the pounces and starts drawing financial blood.

 

So much has been made about Buffet in the media that people are brainwashed. Did buffet start Burlington railroad, Coke, See's candy, Apple computer etc??? Does he manage any of those businesses???

 

Munger and Buffet say they do not like new businesses because they fail and there is no moat.

 

Where do you think a moat comes from??? Some engineer or entrepreneur works really hard to make a new product and service-that is where a moat comes from. Buffet et al wait until it has a problem and them pounce.

 

I have to give Charlie credit here, he even said what they do is a low calling. Higher calling is to be a surgeon, builder(like Steve Jobs, Elon).

 

[Guest jalebijim]

Thanks for the posts JalebiJim. Interesting perspective. I agree: risk-takers and dreamers that build new businesses based on new ideas create a lot of value for the world (however many of them destroy value too - IMO the world would be better place without K-cup coffee pods filling up landfills).

 

Liberty, I value many of your posts. I do think keeping our discussion more civil improves the quality of debate on this board. It's a fine line between vigorous debate and insulting language, one that other posters here frequently cross.

 

If you can't tell the difference between saying that someone is stupid and saying that something that was said was stupid, you're going to have a hard time on the internet.

 

If someone says the Earth is flat or that Bill Gates secretly conspired to create SARS-Cov2 (somehow with 5G cell towers), I'll say that's a stupid claim. Is that insulting too? Well, this here wasn't as bad, but it was still stupid enough that I felt like calling it out.

 

I am not concerned about what my "internet life" will be like. I am here to learn, contribute and exchange ideas.

 

We all get no value from name calling. Calling someone Soyboy/deplorable/antifa/fox watcher/Cnn watcher/liberal/conservative---adds no value or growth. Name calling is the mark of a low IQ person.

 

When peoples ideas/egos get challenged they regress to this childish mechanism.

 

 

[Haasje]

Bottom line is that a metal bender at $800/share this is valued at 3x all its U.S. competitors combined.  It is selling a fraction of the metal. Succeeded for 16 years not to make a dime on that activity. We are in the middle of the greatest recession since 29'. Access to capital is dodgy. The company is heavily indebted both to U.S. capital markets and beholden to China. The CEO has a prior settlement for securities fraud. Influenced the share price again in the middle of the trading day on an option expiration day. Admits he is ignoring court orders to have a twitter sitter as per his prior settlement. I just can't see how this ever goes anywhere except for ever greater fools cajoling each other. Ultimately, share prices follow earnings and there are none.

 

 

[arcube]

Bottom line is that a metal bender at $800/share.

 

After reading this statement, I realized there is no need to read the rest because it is just a rant! I will take this metal bender any day of the week than a lot of VI names on this board.

[rb]

Bottom line is that a metal bender at $800/share.

 

After reading this statement, I realized there is no need to read the rest because it is just a rant! I will take this metal bender any day of the week than a lot of VI names on this board.

It's your money. You can do whatever you want.

[Dalal.Holdings]

Bottom line is that a metal bender at $800/share.

 

After reading this statement, I realized there is no need to read the rest because it is just a rant! I will take this metal bender any day of the week than a lot of VI names on this board.

 

You should know better--"deep value" names like GM, SHLD with famed "value investor backing" is what's praised as good plays on here. Fixation on the CEO's actions or Twitter driven conspiracy theories about accounting fraud instead of the merits/moats of products is par for the course here.

 

And what's more--they want it to fail so they can feel vindicated about bag holding aforementioned value picks for years and years.

 

It's like AMZN 10-15 years ago. I was guilty of being an AMZN hater for a long time, and I was wrong.

[Haasje]

I didn't hate AMZN. Always liked it. Worked with it. I always liked Alphabet too. This has nothing to with not recognizing an investment case outside of a classical value framework.

 

Tesla is just the worst investment case I've ever looked at in the $100 billion+ category ever.

 

$130b market cap

4.8x sales

45x EV/EBITDA

CEO who settled for securities fraud.

Suspicious accounting

Every quarter I have to read about *deliveries* because they just can't come out and say they sold some cars.

Recognizing a portion of FSD because the car can stop at every light...

Promising a million robotaxis and moneyprinters (I'm not making this stuff up, he does, the guy is a total clown)

 

Amazon clearly and consciously developed a strong network effect. Alphabet has a near-monopoly on search. They may be too pricey from time to time but they are great businesses.

 

Tesla is at best a company in a bad industry. But worse than that it doesn't even stand out positively within the industry. The only thing it is good at is raising money at ridiculous valuations. It raised something like $20 billion of capital in the past 16 years. With that, they managed to get a little over 1 million cars on the road (not too mention the many, many billions of subsidies).

 

And they still need ever more capital. Because they are losing money while putting liability after liability out on the road. They are consistently selling the future to make the present look prettier (and it still doesn't look prettier).

 

[Dalal.Holdings]

I didn't hate AMZN. Always liked it. Worked with it. I always liked Alphabet too. This has nothing to with not recognizing an investment case outside of a classical value framework.

 

Tesla is just the worst investment case I've ever looked at in the $100 billion+ category ever.

 

$130b market cap

4.8x sales

45x EV/EBITDA

CEO who settled for securities fraud.

Suspicious accounting

Every quarter I have to read about *deliveries* because they just can't come out and say they sold some cars.

Recognizing a portion of FSD because the car can stop at every light...

Promising a million robotaxis and moneyprinters (I'm not making this stuff up, he does, the guy is a total clown)

 

Amazon clearly and consciously developed a strong network effect. Alphabet has a near-monopoly on search. They may be too pricey from time to time but they are great businesses.

 

Tesla is at best a company in a bad industry. But worse than that it doesn't even stand out positively within the industry. The only thing it is good at is raising money at ridiculous valuations. It raised something like $20 billion of capital in the past 16 years. With that, they managed to get a little over 1 million cars on the road (not too mention the many, many billions of subsidies).

 

And they still need ever more capital. Because they are losing money while putting liability after liability out on the road. They are consistently selling the future to make the present look prettier (and it still doesn't look prettier).

 

I think you underestimate Musk's accomplishments. Starting a car company and rocket company are not easy feats. Now try doing them simultaneously. Oh, and the cars are EVs which haven't really ever been tried at scale. Oh, and the rockets land themselves on a drone ship floating in the ocean...

 

There's been a lot of capital wasted in the auto industry. I don't think Tesla is the worst offender (by far). Look at GM and F which just 12 years later are at existential risk (again) despite selling multiples more volume and having more resources than Tesla.