Tesla’s Engineering Chief Takes Leave of Absence at Pivotal Moment • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla’s Engineering Chief Takes Leave of Absence at Pivotal Moment

#101

Post by forapurpose » Sat, May 12, 2018, 8:45 PM UTC

perl4ever wrote: post #95

secfirstmd wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's owned by Rupert Murdoch, that shouldn't be a surprise.

From what I recall, the editorial page was much the same before the Murdoch era. However, the rest of the paper was a fairly stark contrast, and I didn't have the general impression that they slanted the actual news. After Murdoch bought it I lost faith in their reporting, but I never held the editorials against them too much prior to that. The opinion section seemed like a quarantine for the right wing types. Back i…

> I didn't have the general impression that they slanted the actual news. After Murdoch bought it I lost faith in their reporting

There is (or was) a lot of internal conflict over what the reporters feel is favorable coverage of Trump.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=wall+street+journal+trump+coverage...

Re: Tesla’s Engineering Chief Takes Leave of Absence at Pivotal Moment

#102

Post by throwaway5752 » Sat, May 12, 2018, 11:49 PM UTC

tofu8 wrote: post #100

beambot wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this short ratio atypical? I presume it involves some major institutional investors being against TSLA, but is there a good way to determine who?

>Is this short ratio atypical? I wouldn't say so. There are other heavily shorted stocks that have a much higher short ratio because of their small float (e.g. MTCH). >but is there a good way to determine who? Short sellers don't have to disclose their positions, unlike investors who're long the stock. You can try to get a better sense of who's thinking what through headlines and analyst notes/reports. Side note: Elo…

Thanks, for replying when I couldn't! Generally I agree with you. I would disagree that this level of short interest is typical, I think 20%+ short interest is high 90s percentile territory. The relatively low short ratio is more indicative of how highly traded TSLA is (short ratio = short interest / avg daily volume).

If there's a way to report who is short a stock, I don't know it. There are also other trades to profit from decreases in an underlying security (buying puts, selling calls) and I don't know about reporting obligations there, either.

Re: Tesla’s Engineering Chief Takes Leave of Absence at Pivotal Moment

#103

Post by shanghaiaway » Sun, May 13, 2018, 12:28 AM UTC

et2o wrote: post #49

ajross wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one has multi-billion bets against TSLA. It's only like 25% off its all time high and has a market cap bigger than GM.

25% of all Tesla stock is out on loan according to the first Google result for "Tesla short" [1] Assuming most stocks on loan are due to shorting, 0.25*50 Billion (Tesla Market Cap)= approximately 10 Billion being shorted. 1. https://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/01/tesla-short-interest-hits-re...

12.5B

Re: Tesla’s Engineering Chief Takes Leave of Absence at Pivotal Moment

#104

Post by perl4ever » Sun, May 13, 2018, 10:47 PM UTC

carlivar wrote: post #98

perl4ever wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many cars that don't have rear doors, but do have rear seats. The worst case scenario in a Tesla, if the rear doors don't open, doesn't seem any worse than the inevitable situation in a 2 door 2+2. Something else people worry about (or used to) was power windows not opening in a crash in case the door is jammed. But we don't mandate crank windows for that reason.

That's a great point, though since I have kids I can only dream of a 2 door car for a while. It is technically possible but hard to schlep with them back there when they are little. So I think of it more as a safety scenario in my present life situation.

Expectations and norms are clearly different than they used to be a few decades ago. When I was a pre-teen in the late 80s, and my family got an SUV, it had seating for five passengers like modern vehicles, bucket seats in the front and ones that folded down in the rear...but four doors were not an option. In fact of the several competitors only one offered rear doors.

Re: Tesla’s Engineering Chief Takes Leave of Absence at Pivotal Moment

#105

Post by et2o » Mon, May 14, 2018, 3:29 AM UTC

shanghaiaway wrote: post #103

et2o wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

25% of all Tesla stock is out on loan according to the first Google result for "Tesla short" [1] Assuming most stocks on loan are due to shorting, 0.25*50 Billion (Tesla Market Cap)= approximately 10 Billion being shorted. 1. https://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/01/tesla-short-interest-hits-re...

12.5B

I left some out out in my estimate in case stocks are loaned for another reason I'm not aware of.

Re: Tesla’s Engineering Chief Takes Leave of Absence at Pivotal Moment

#106

Post by zimpenfish » Mon, May 14, 2018, 7:59 AM UTC

forapurpose wrote: post #65

zimpenfish wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Journalists are supposed to be dispassionate. This has never been true, has it?

> This has never been true, has it? That's like saying everybody lies, therefore nobody has ever been honest. Sure, journalists are human and have emotions and make mistakes, but it's not a binary issue; it's a continuum. Journalists generally should strive to be dispassionate.

> Journalists generally should strive to be dispassionate.

But why?

Re: Tesla’s Engineering Chief Takes Leave of Absence at Pivotal Moment

#107

Post by ClassyJacket » Tue, May 15, 2018, 8:18 AM UTC

ucaetano wrote: post #15

ClassyJacket wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but isn't that something that could be handled between the company and investors, not on a public news site?

> handled between the company and investors There's no such thing for a public company. It either talks to the board, which represents investors, or to the public, since it is impossible to know who owns shares of a public company. And in practice, given index funds, most people do.

Okay, not an entirely unreasonable point.

But then that would imply that Tesla has an obligation to make sure third party news outlets report on every holiday taken by every executive. I'm not saying it has to be private information, but why not announce it on their website? Why does the Wall Street Journal have to do it?

Re: Tesla’s Engineering Chief Takes Leave of Absence at Pivotal Moment

#108

Post by ucaetano » Thu, May 17, 2018, 10:22 PM UTC

ClassyJacket wrote: post #107

ucaetano wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> handled between the company and investors There's no such thing for a public company. It either talks to the board, which represents investors, or to the public, since it is impossible to know who owns shares of a public company. And in practice, given index funds, most people do.

Okay, not an entirely unreasonable point. But then that would imply that Tesla has an obligation to make sure third party news outlets report on every holiday taken by every executive. I'm not saying it has to be private information, but why not announce it on their website? Why does the Wall Street Journal have to do it?

> But then that would imply that Tesla has an obligation to make sure third party news outlets report on every holiday taken by every executive.

Public companies have to publicly report any "relevant facts" that could seriously impact the company and the investors. A Senior Vice President of Engineering taking a leave of absence of many weeks (or more, with no end announced) during a major engineering crisis in the company is by all means a relevant fact.