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Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

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Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#311

Post by nostrademons »

dragonwriter wrote: post #307
gfody wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

> 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 It's the gateway problem to any of the ones he might find more interesting, and if he isn't willing to engage with that problem enough to satisfy investors, he should be “Chief Ivory Tower Visionary” and let someone else be CEO. Or, at least, get a COO and gracefully hand off boring operationa…

The CEO role is Chief Ivory Tower Visionary. As CEO, your #1 job is to set the vision and strategy for the company, and your #2 is to get the right people on the bus and the wrong people off, which is dramatically easier with a strong vision.

He does desperately need a good COO though to make sure Tesla can actually deliver on its promises.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#312

Post by dragonwriter »

agumonkey wrote: post #64
maxsilver wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The important part of Musk's plan has already succeeded. He made electric cars cool and competitive. If Tesla folds tomorrow, there will still be a large market for electric cars, and multiple other companies serving that. Depending on your needs, that has arguably already happened. While Tesla is still the "coolest" brand of car, there are better/cheaper electric cars from many non-Tesla companies already widely ava…

If Tesla folds, how much will they be able to refund to customers ? I guess it's probably written on the deposit contract. Also, I wonder how many would go buy a competitor EV vehicle if their Model 3 doesn't happen. Or will they go ICE ?

> If Tesla folds, how much will they be able to refund to customers ? I guess it's probably written on the deposit contract.

If it's a bankruptcy (and why would they told before that point?), whatever he deposit contract or general principles of law suggest for a going concern would be the upper limit of refunds, but the actual value would be dependent on what assets were left and what other claims were competing.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#313

Post by dingaling »

djrogers wrote: post #145
maxsilver wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The important part of Musk's plan has already succeeded. He made electric cars cool and competitive. If Tesla folds tomorrow, there will still be a large market for electric cars, and multiple other companies serving that. Depending on your needs, that has arguably already happened. While Tesla is still the "coolest" brand of car, there are better/cheaper electric cars from many non-Tesla companies already widely ava…

> While Tesla is still the "coolest" brand of car, there are better/cheaper electric cars from many non-Tesla companies already widely available today. No, there are a very small handful of cheaper electric cars that may be subjectively better for some uses but worse for many others. Bolt, i3, Leaf - that's about it for mass-produced cars being bought in any volume, and the manufactureres are taking a bath on them. G…

At worst we would revert to hybrids as the dominant low-emission platform. Which is still much, much better than IC-only. Tesla dates back to 2003 by which point Toyota and Honda had been selling hybrids for six years.

But given that Nissan and Renault had EVs on the market for as long as Teslas has, I wouldn't be too concerned about the post-Tesla EV market.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#314

Post by Analemma_ »

fooker wrote: post #300
Analemma_ wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple buying Tesla would be a gigantic waste of money. Ben Thompson has explained why in a couple good Stratechery posts, but the tl;dr is, a large percentage of Tesla's valuation is goodwill (its reputation and "coolness factor"), and Apple already has plenty of that, so all the money Apple spent for that piece of Tesla's value would be pure waste. And that's before you get into the fact that huge acquisitions, wher…

Both Apple and Tesla sell luxury electronics. The difference is in just in the size and the number of moving parts.

That's like saying that both Ford and SpaceX sell freight vehicles.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#315

Post by dragonwriter »

avoutthere wrote: post #87

It sounds to me like Musk has a card up his sleeve. If he were truly in fear for the continued existence of Tesla, he would have been very patient and accommodating toward those whom he might need to approach later for more capital. I suspect that he has already secured the capital (or assurances that he will).

> It sounds to me like Musk has a card up his sleeve.

It sounds to me like Musk has been projecting near term (<1 year, sometimes even “next quarter”) transition to being cash flow positive and not needing new capital regularly for six years now and is used to just getting away with it even though it's been wrong every time.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#316

Post by refurb »

Retric wrote: post #292
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…

7% drop does not really equate to Tesla Plunges IMO. Was this bad enough that you wanted to sell?

Really? They beat earnings estimates, so I would assumed the stock would have gone up, at least by a few percentage points.

I would say a 10% drop in a stock over a few hours is "plunging".

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#317

Post by dragonwriter »

nostrademons wrote: post #311
dragonwriter wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 It's the gateway problem to any of the ones he might find more interesting, and if he isn't willing to engage with that problem enough to satisfy investors, he should be “Chief Ivory Tower Visionary” and let someone else be CEO. Or, at least, get a COO and gracefully hand off boring operationa…

The CEO role is Chief Ivory Tower Visionary. As CEO, your #1 job is to set the vision and strategy for the company, and your #2 is to get the right people on the bus and the wrong people off, which is dramatically easier with a strong vision. He does desperately need a good COO though to make sure Tesla can actually deliver on its promises.

> The CEO role is Chief Ivory Tower Visionary.

No, the CEO role is turning abstract vision into concrete strategy and communicating that strategy especially to investoes, because money people always want to hear things from the horse's mouth. It's a good thing for the CEO to be the visionary rather than channel someone else's vision, if they can do the rest of the job, but they can't be stuck in an ivory tower and think that addressing the path from present reality to distant vision is beneath their dignity.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#318

Post by refurb »

komali2 wrote: post #227
kc10 wrote: post #122

I have been investing a portion of my paycheck every month for the last three years and never sold TSLA. It's bothering me to see so many high profile departures particularly in finance/accounting groups. And yesterday's conference call was a disaster, I see it as dodging valid questions related to current state of the company and answering open ended interesting questions like "When will Tesla launch its own network…

Nice, helping make it cheaper for us :) I for one have been loving the dump, makes it real easy to buy.

I have a feeling that posts like this are going to be very entertaining to read in a year or so.

Just like the "Dropbox is a stupid idea because..." everyone loves to quote.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#319

Post by kneel »

xkjkls wrote: post #111
kneel wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what he did is awesome. Who cares what wall street thinks? They're mostly a bunch of leeches passing around paper and overreacting to news articles. Tesla will be fine.

The west coast bias in Hacker News is always shocking. The capital markets exist for a reason, and the people he's mocking on this conference call are the ones that he's going to need to be begging for billions if things don't deliver in Q3 or Q4.

If the price drops and someone else thinks its undervalued they'll buy it. Elon doesn't have to brown nose to Wall St. bigwigs for that to happen.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#320

Post by rudedogg »

danso wrote: post #150
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…

Jeffrey Skilling had the same approach too. In fact, he was even bolder than Musk because he not only evaded an obviously mean-spirited question, but he called out the investor as an "asshole". You can listen to the excerpt at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSK0v0vTgXA

Pretty funny comment on that video (posted 6 months ago):

> Elon Musk in a couple of years I'm calling it now

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