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Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

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Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#231

Post by mephitix »

YurtleTheTurtle wrote: post #123
plint wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a petition of sorts on twitter to get Hyperchange on to the conference call. I think Elon was trying to segue with a plug to these guys because they aren't the regulars. I'm asking seriously though, what would he stand to gain from hiding info about capex? Or do you think the reaction from investors is due to his attitude or signs of stress/things going wrong internally?

He doesn't want to admit they company will need to raise money later this year.

He actually addressed capital raise on the call and it was pretty clear when he kept saying that they wouldn't need or want a capital raise

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#232

Post by jacquesm »

rawrmaan wrote: post #50

Elon has always seemed to have the attitude of "not everyone should invest in this stock". I find this refreshing. God forbid a CEO do anything except try to drive the share price as high as humanly possible. I don't know if this carries the same weight in a public company, but setting expectations with investors is super important in a startup and prevents a ton of wasted time wrangling investors who don't get the t…

Not answering a couple of questions (to which he should have had the answers) cost him a substantial premium the next time he has to raise. And almost nobody believes that Tesla will not need money again.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#233

Post by philwelch »

garmaine wrote: post #177
philwelch wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tesla is a giant confidence game - as are most high growth opportunities. Do you literally mean that Tesla is a scam? (That’s the normal meaning of “confidence game”, i.e. “con game”).

The difference is intent. A con is a confidence play with the intent to deceive. Elon’s MO is a confidence play with intent to succeed — the confidence motivates success of the organization (at great labor cost) that would otherwise be unobtainable.

That’s not the standard etymology, is it? I always thought that a con game was called a “confidence game” because the perpetrator is gaining the “confidence” of the mark.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#234

Post by nonbel »

danso wrote: post #192
nonbel wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"It's literally his job to talk to investors. He explicitly invited those questions, too." I totally agree, still in my experience they are quite boring. I'm not even advocating for any kind of change or anything, they are probably supposed to be boring. >"Obviously it would be boring to you as a layman with no money on the line." Why would you I assume I was listening to an earnings call without money on the line?…

Why do you have an expectation that a Q&A about financials should be emotionally exciting?

I don't. I even say this in the post you are replying to.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#235

Post by sotojuan »

xkjkls wrote: post #195
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It shoudn't shock you. It should be expected based on the demographics of the people who read HN.

Goldman Sachs has more developers than Facebook. It's not like Wall Street isn't filled with software people.

Those people don't go on HN. This is a forum mostly comprised of college students, web developers with <5 years experience, Silicon Valley startup/tech company developers, and a few experts that have stuck around.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#236

Post by gfody »

arkis22 wrote: post #38
mephitix wrote: post #5

I was on this call. It was extremely cringey/embarrassing to hear Elon dismiss valid questions. At the same time, it was fantastic to see a young, smart, retail investor (Gali from Hyperchange) get to ask so many questions directly to the leadership team. I thought before the call that Gali would get to ask only one question, like the other analysts. He was able to ask almost 10! It was surreal. I was left feeling th…

A little more context from the WSJ article ( https://www.wsj.com/articles/teslas-elon-musk-turns-conferen... ) >“We’re going to go to YouTube, sorry. These questions are so dry. They’re killing me.” He directed the operator to take questions from Tesla investor Galileo Russell, whose HyperChange TV YouTube channel features a video titled, “Why I Bought Tesla Today at $255/Share.” >Mr. Russell, who had campaigned to g…

In the grand scheme of things figuring out how to make model3's faster than they can sell them is a boring problem for Musk and I could imagine how frustrating it must be to have all the banks freaking out as if they're going to miss a fleeting opportunity to sell a bunch of cars. It's like when Nikola Tesla was trying to build worldwide wireless telegraphy but J.P. Morgan just wanted him to make fluorescent lights. Hopefully things go better for Elon than they did for Nikola.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#237

Post by gnode »

matwood wrote: post #194
zmk_ wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually as a CEO he has a fiduciary duty to maximise shareholder value.

> fiduciary duty to maximise shareholder value This can be and has been widely interpreted. It does not have to mean maximizing profits to the exclusion of everything else.

Or more relevantly to this situation: chasing quarterly financial results to the detriment of long-term growth and profitability.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#238

Post by paulcole »

moate wrote: post #116
paulcole wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Elon has always seemed to have the attitude of "not everyone should invest in this stock". Sounds like the CEO equivalent of a movie director saying "I didn't make this one for the critics." Translation, "I know there are problems but I'd rather have my ego stroked by fans than face real criticism."

"I didn't make this one for the critics" frequently means "I made the movie I wanted" or "I made the movie the studio wanted". That statement could boil down to "I'm not concerned about money, I'm making a movie I wanted to make in service of the fans" or "I made a movie that I knew would make a ton of money, because people go to see this junk even if critics don't like it". CEO's don't have critics in the same sense…

> "we're mission driven, not money driven"

This is easy to say when it's someone else's money you're burning.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#239

Post by pvg »

craftyguy wrote: post #213
dragontamer wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Elon has always seemed to have the attitude of "not everyone should invest in this stock". This is financial suicide for the company. TSLA needs more money this year or next year. Losing $1 Billion per quarter means he is relying on his shareholders each time he raises another round of equity. The $1.7+ Billion to build the Gigafactory was from the Stock Market ( https://electrek.co/2016/05/25/tesla-tsla-stock-offe…

Not really. Attracting the right kind of investors is more important to him than attracting all the investors. There are folks with dollars who can stomach TSLA, and there are folks who can not. Some might argue that it's better for the company overall (especially in the longer term) to attract the former and ignore the latter. The latter will generate a ton of noise, and cause great instability in the stock price be…

Attracting the right kind of investors is more important to him than attracting all the investors.

That seems a bit counter to the purpose of an open public market.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#240

Post by mmsimanga »

Nokinside wrote: post #218
mmsimanga wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What Musk is interested in is not relevant. Could you explain this statement? It's good to have these kinds of questions but let's not forget the bigger picture. Musk is making a contribution to the world. The Wolf on Wall Street not so much.

The purpose of the call was to serve investors. Musk should have answered their concerns. Normally investors listen forward-looking statements from CEO, but Musk has failed all his projections so many times that they are worthless. He says that he don't need to ask more money this year. Investors look at the numbers and don't believe it. He should give something useful that helps investors to asses the risk on their…

If you read my initial comment I started by stating why I have some sympathy for Musk. Having been at the coalface I know the feeling of facing the so-called tough questions. You always have two choices, mumble something that you are aware of the issues and you are giving the issues the highest priority. All available personnel are working around the clock to deal with the issues. The truth though is most of the issues are too technical to explain to the crowd. Musk in making his statement said something I felt like saying to a whole bunch of people many times in my life. Piss off and leave me to do my job. Some of these issues took other companies decades to fix. As I said I don't hold any Tesla stock.
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