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Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

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Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#281

Post by greglindahl »

jacquesm wrote: post #274
greglindahl wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this speculation, or are you talking about some previous time where Tesla had to pay a lot more to raise after an Elon comment? Also, can you point out who said "Tesla will not need money again"? Elon is always careful to say something like "We will not need to raise money in ". And then he raises money, says he did it because the price was right but it wasn't needed . Shorts accuse him of lying. Rinse, repeat.

If you feel that pissing off institutional investors is going to reduce the price of the next raise I'm fine with that. As for the second part of your comment: The Economist wrote that Tesla would have to raise money this year, 2.5 to 3 Billion $. Elon Musk's response to that: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/984705630106673152 And as far as I can see it has no qualifiers. The complete text of the tweet: "The Econ…

Notice that his response to the Economist is in the form that I said -- the word "need" is present.

As for Tesla's targets, they have changed (downwards) several times, and I've seen plenty of people noticing. IIRC the target announced after Q4 earnings was 2,500 Model 3's per week by the end of Q1, and they missed by 500.

Honestly, this entire discussion is the kind of thing I'd expect on Seeking Alpha, not Hacker News.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#282

Post by qaq »

ttul wrote: post #7

Tesla is clearly flying close to the sun, and Musk is not incorrect to suggest that investors who can't take that kind of risk should not be along for the ride; however, it probably would have been more prudent to hold back on that pronouncement, given that many investors seem to have taken the hint and exited the stock... Tesla is a giant confidence game - as are most high growth opportunities.

If memory serves it's not his first remarks of this nature. I see my TSLA stock as a way to contribute to the version of the future I want to live in and not a ROI driven investment.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#283

Post by mikeash »

philwelch wrote: post #233
garmaine wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, exactly. These are all synonyms. People use “con” instead of “confidence game” just to save skme syllables, not to impart a different meaning.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#284

Post by jnwatson »

3pt14159 wrote: post #136
nodesocket wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree about it being embarrassing and cringey. I appreciate his no-bs and no-fluff candor. Elon called out the press for writing misleading articles to generate clicks. He went as far as calling it irresponsible and dangerous. He also called out day-traders, saying of you can't handle volatility then sell your stock. "I am not here to convince you to buy Tesla stock." You can listen to the call at https://edge.med…

Yeah I agree with you nodesocket. Musk comes off as focusing on the right things, not getting bogged down by a x% difference on capital outlay here or there.

That x% is the length of their runway. It is fundamental to the future of the company.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#285

Post by mwfunk »

gfody wrote: post #272
TAForObvReasons wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be a "boring" problem, but people aren't just paying for a reservation for nothing, ultimately they are expecting a car. And if there's no indication that they can meet the promises, that's a problem and he shouldn't be promising or giving wild production estimates in the first place. Unless you believe that Musk is selling the ability for people to say they have a reservation. In which case there's no point t…

but thousands of model3's are being produced and delivered every week. at this point it's just a matter of time for reservations to be filled and velocity will ramp up naturally as they improve their process. the investors panicking because velocity isn't doubled yesterday doesn't seem like long term thinking.

...that’s not what investors are panicking over? You know that right?

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#286

Post by arkis22 »

gfody wrote: post #272
TAForObvReasons wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be a "boring" problem, but people aren't just paying for a reservation for nothing, ultimately they are expecting a car. And if there's no indication that they can meet the promises, that's a problem and he shouldn't be promising or giving wild production estimates in the first place. Unless you believe that Musk is selling the ability for people to say they have a reservation. In which case there's no point t…

but thousands of model3's are being produced and delivered every week. at this point it's just a matter of time for reservations to be filled and velocity will ramp up naturally as they improve their process. the investors panicking because velocity isn't doubled yesterday doesn't seem like long term thinking.

You can't focus on the long term at the expense of the short term if in between you're bankrupt.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#287

Post by speby »

mcguire wrote: post #196
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…

" God forbid a CEO do anything except try to drive the share price as high as humanly possible. " If he wants to maximize the amount of money he gets the next time he goes to the trough, while minimizing the dilution, then yes, he needs to drive the price up.

That may be true but the shorter-term interests (less than a year or two, commonly) of some of these institutional investors is simply not in-line with the longer-term nature of what Tesla is doing.

It would not be in Musk's best interests to pander to those investors and compromise the actual long-term integrity of a business that has tremendous opportunity to provide substantial returns by avoiding the mistakes of short-term decision-making.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#288

Post by JumpCrisscross »

mr_spothawk wrote: post #243
jacquesm wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the second time in a short while that he shows he does not want to run the company like it is a public company. But he does want access to that capital. Those two don't mesh.

> It's the second time in a short while that he shows he does not want to run the company like it is a public company. But he does want access to that capital. I think that Matt Levine (bloomberg) might suggest there's more & easier money to be had in the private market, anyway (see Uber, pre-IPO Spotify, etc...). The problem for Musk, if he also shares that view, is that taking the company private seems (to me) like…

> Matt Levine (bloomberg) might suggest there's more & easier money to be had in the private market

That hypothesis is, at least so far, not sustained by the evidence of private-market darlings continuing to rise in the public markets.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#289

Post by pm90 »

pvg wrote: post #239
craftyguy wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is it really though? An open public market just means that anyone can purchase the stock; not that just anyone should.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#290

Post by pooya13 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #22
ttul wrote: post #7

Tesla is clearly flying close to the sun, and Musk is not incorrect to suggest that investors who can't take that kind of risk should not be along for the ride; however, it probably would have been more prudent to hold back on that pronouncement, given that many investors seem to have taken the hint and exited the stock... Tesla is a giant confidence game - as are most high growth opportunities.

> Musk is not incorrect to suggest that investors who can't take that kind of risk should not be along for the ride Risk is fine. Blind risk is not. Questions about cash position for a money-losing company with less cash on hand than it burned in the trailing 12 months are prudent.

All the capex info was in their letter and they talked about it in the call as well. Why should all the investors have to listen to them repeat themselves? I for one appreciated that he skipped the question and did not waste my time. Also the reservation holder conversion rate is a highly strategic information and I don't think they should release that to the public. And to be honest it is irrelevant while they have such a giant backlog of orders. my guess is that the intent was to gather material for negative press. Let's not kid ourselves. Tesla has been the target of a massive propoganda/trolling campaign recently. (HN included)
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