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Tesla Accounting Chief, HR Head Resign on the Same Day; Stock Plunges

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Re: Tesla Accounting Chief, HR Head Resign on the Same Day; Stock Plunges

#211

Post by velcrovan »

sophistication wrote: post #201
velcrovan wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right that Musk does not need to score political points with the everyday person in order for Tesla to succeed. But by the same token, Musk's "fitting into the current political and cultural trajectory" (whatever that means) is also of no value to Tesla. The actual concerns people have are much more concrete. Tesla has already had "a few years of optimization". They have been making cars for ten years now. The…

> whatever that means I mean that he is a rare kind of public figure who is really down-to-earth, yet proponent of the free market & innovation. Like Trump he breaks with the norms, but he's a lot more sincere. He also does not seem to outsource overseas very much, which kind of fits into the MAGA narrative.

Well, like you said, the average person does not care about stuff like that.

By the way if you like sincere down to earth people who break with norms and are in favor of tariffs, check out the chapo trap house podcast

Re: Tesla Accounting Chief, HR Head Resign on the Same Day; Stock Plunges

#212

Post by fencepost »

matwood wrote: post #46
fencepost wrote: post #35

As someone who's not obsessively following Tesla, I'm a bit jaded by these. I'm sure there are problems, but what feels like massive PR efforts by the "shorts" has effectively poisoned the well for negative news. As a casual observer I can't tell what's actual bad news and what's well-orchestrated market-manipulation "OMG WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE" by people trying to drop the price, and I don't actually care enough about…

> I'm sure there are problems, but what feels like massive PR efforts by the "shorts" has effectively poisoned the well for negative news. What kind of PR effort do you need when every CFO you hire keeps leaving? Think about it. The person in the company who completely knows the financials stays for a month and bounces? Why? Could it be that the financials are so bad they are unfixable? Could it be that that person i…

Why? Could it be that the financials are so bad they are unfixable? Could it be that that person is being pushed to stretch things a bit here and there to make them look better?

Maybe. Could it be that qualified people with financial backgrounds don't understand what it's like to be under THE SPOTLIGHT and think they can handle it before they get in there and say "Oh hell no" and walk?

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe all finance and accounting people moving up in management spend time in boot camps with training sessions for "Being a public face in a personality-driven company" and "Learning to love being vilified." That's never been my impression though. I may be stereotyping, but I think people who can thrive in that kind of public-facing position are a lot more likely to have gone into Sales or Marketing positions.

And on the internal side of things, it's probably almost as difficult dealing with an erratic and public CEO like Musk as it is dealing with an erratic and public President like Trump.

Re: Tesla Accounting Chief, HR Head Resign on the Same Day; Stock Plunges

#213

Post by phamilton »

whatok wrote: post #199
dragontamer wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a solid point, and I guess the stock market is a bad figure to talk about bankruptcy. Instead, we can look at the Bond market for that. Moody's rates Tesla 2025 bonds at Caa1, and today the interest rate on Tesla has risen above 8.8% The bond market certainly is pricing in the risk of default and/or bankruptcy at this point. 9%ish bonds are really bad on a 7-year bond, especially in today's market that's got r…

I work at a hedge fund specializing in corporate credit. No serious market participants think that Tesla is going actually bankrupt but does run the risk of debt restructuring. Bankruptcy vs debt restructuring would happen under very different terms. As a better metric clogged by less noise, Tesla 1yr CDS is pricing in a 12% chance of default while 2yr is 20%. The bonds you mentioned should actually be a lot lower bu…

> BTW, you mention the "interest rate" on those bonds when I think you meant yield. Very big difference.

I'm not very knowledgeable here, but is the key difference that yield is more a result of the market (i.e. bonds fluxuate in value but the return on the bond itself is fixed, so the yield reflects the relationship between cost and payout)?

Re: Tesla Accounting Chief, HR Head Resign on the Same Day; Stock Plunges

#214

Post by matwood »

smolder wrote: post #205
matwood wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the head HR person. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/07/another-tesla-executive-leav... > Sorry, this entire narrative you have invested in of executives running for the hills just has no relation to reality. TSLA supporters thinking everything is fine are the ones that have no relation to reality.

So then short the company and make your money? Why do you have to publicly trash talk them so hard if your analysis has merit?

I was long TSLA for a long time and made good money. I sold them off in the $350s once I decided they still had a very long road ahead, and they were already priced to execute perfectly. I've shorted them off and on, but shorting requires more time than I have to spend watching stocks right now.

Other problems with shorting is that the market can stay irrational longer than I can stay solvent. TSLA has a huge fanboy level following that ignores any financial metric. I almost entered another short after the $420 tweet, but I thought no way would Musk commit fraud and lie.

> Why do you have to publicly trash talk them so hard if your analysis has merit?

I also do not think pointing out facts is trashing them. Again, all of this bad news and press is of TSLAs/Musk own doing. Stop over promising and under delivering. Stop acting crazy in public. Stop losing $700M+/quarter. Stop committing what looks like fraud.

Re: Tesla Accounting Chief, HR Head Resign on the Same Day; Stock Plunges

#215

Post by smolder »

scottkduncan wrote: post #136
fencepost wrote: post #35

As someone who's not obsessively following Tesla, I'm a bit jaded by these. I'm sure there are problems, but what feels like massive PR efforts by the "shorts" has effectively poisoned the well for negative news. As a casual observer I can't tell what's actual bad news and what's well-orchestrated market-manipulation "OMG WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE" by people trying to drop the price, and I don't actually care enough about…

"Shorts" didn't cause the CEO to invent a $420/share offer for the company out of whole cloth, nor did they force him to smoke a blunt on video. The mental gymnastics you have to do not see the red flags here, completely the result of the CEO's actions and mismanagement, is something.

Neither of those things bother me. Being a conformist is not a virtue in a business culture marked by top-heavy bureaucracy, mediocrity, me-too hype chasing, and slow decline. Economists, board members, bankers, c-level execs - the shot callers of the world are much less clever and equipped to lead than they collectively think they are. If you think hitting a joint is a red flag, I wonder what kind. It's just showmanship - he's building up his normal-guy folk-hero persona. It means nothing else, is completely harmless.

Re: Tesla Accounting Chief, HR Head Resign on the Same Day; Stock Plunges

#216

Post by smolder »

scottkduncan wrote: post #200
martythemaniak wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He also drank whisky. In California, those are both legal.

legal != smart

It's probably only "not smart" because you're assuming some hypothetical people are going to be hypothetically upset about the weed use when they have no real reason to be. In effect, you'd be that reactionary person you're worried about.

Re: Tesla Accounting Chief, HR Head Resign on the Same Day; Stock Plunges

#217

Post by dragontamer »

phamilton wrote: post #213
whatok wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work at a hedge fund specializing in corporate credit. No serious market participants think that Tesla is going actually bankrupt but does run the risk of debt restructuring. Bankruptcy vs debt restructuring would happen under very different terms. As a better metric clogged by less noise, Tesla 1yr CDS is pricing in a 12% chance of default while 2yr is 20%. The bonds you mentioned should actually be a lot lower bu…

> BTW, you mention the "interest rate" on those bonds when I think you meant yield. Very big difference. I'm not very knowledgeable here, but is the key difference that yield is more a result of the market (i.e. bonds fluxuate in value but the return on the bond itself is fixed, so the yield reflects the relationship between cost and payout)?

He's right. I misused the terms. "Interest rate" isn't precise at all, and since we're talking finances, the details are actually important and I should have been more careful about which terms I used.

There is a "coupon", which is the amount a bond pays each year. Which is one kind of interest rate.

There is the "yield to maturity", and since Tesla's 2025 bond seems like a normal bond, so Yield implies yield-to-maturity. This is another "interest rate" but just saying "interest rate" is meaningless.

Since coupon vs yield is ambiguous, I should have used more precise language earlier.

> bonds fluxuate in value but the return on the bond itself is fixed, so the yield reflects the relationship between cost and payout

Yes.

Re: Tesla Accounting Chief, HR Head Resign on the Same Day; Stock Plunges

#218

Post by whatok »

phamilton wrote: post #213
whatok wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work at a hedge fund specializing in corporate credit. No serious market participants think that Tesla is going actually bankrupt but does run the risk of debt restructuring. Bankruptcy vs debt restructuring would happen under very different terms. As a better metric clogged by less noise, Tesla 1yr CDS is pricing in a 12% chance of default while 2yr is 20%. The bonds you mentioned should actually be a lot lower bu…

> BTW, you mention the "interest rate" on those bonds when I think you meant yield. Very big difference. I'm not very knowledgeable here, but is the key difference that yield is more a result of the market (i.e. bonds fluxuate in value but the return on the bond itself is fixed, so the yield reflects the relationship between cost and payout)?

If I were to hear interest rate mentioned in relation to a bond, I would assume they were talking about the coupon which in this case is fixed. I think you have the right understanding, various yield methods basically are just the IRR of the security under different assumptions. If you bought at par and held to maturity, the yield would be equal to the coupon which in this case is 5.3%. Without knowing where the bond is actually trading, given that it has a yield higher than its coupon, you know that it is trading below par; the difference is how much it is trading below par under the assumption you get 100% of the principal at maturity.

I wouldn't normally refer to the return as "fixed" as that is primarily only used in reference to the coupon and because of the fact that you mentioned earlier in that sentence; bonds fluctuate in price so the yield is regularly changing given a change in price.

Re: Tesla Accounting Chief, HR Head Resign on the Same Day; Stock Plunges

#219

Post by dwild »

ummonk wrote: post #176
rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>After that he had a range of little annoying problems, many of which were likely software bugs, but then he (actually his GF) experienced something in autopilot mode known on the Tesla forums as "shadow braking" -- the car braking hard on the highway because it seems to see the shadow of an overpass and think it's a wall. This is extremely dangerous. It was on the I-405 (SoCal) going 70-80mph, and such a thing could…

My Subaru never shadow brakes. Its driver assistance technology is certainly more rudimentary than Tesla's (only has lane keep assist and adaptive cruise control, and the adaptive cruise control doesn't see speedups far ahead and doesn't catch people switching into my lane until they're already halfway switched), but it is very reliable at doing what I expect to, and not having any dangerous shadow-braking like that.

> My Subaru never shadow brakes.

Do your Subaru is electric? Does it range compare to the Model 3? How does it compare to its acceleration?

Don't ever buy a product for a feature in beta. For the sake of anyone, never ever EVER do that.

Re: Tesla Accounting Chief, HR Head Resign on the Same Day; Stock Plunges

#220

Post by dang »

martythemaniak wrote: post #195
chollida1 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Kind of depressing that yours is the top comment, given how many outright lies it is based on. Most of the time I comment, its more to get my ideas clarified, if you think I've outright lied then please correct me. As your comment stands you didn't actually refute any of my points. Is the Reno factory going to be building cars if not then its irrelevant to the topic of factories to build cars with? The China factor…

> Most of the time I comment, its more to get my ideas clarified As others have noted in this thread, the unceasing torrent of negativity around Tesla has made it practically impossible to tell trolls and haters apart from regular folk. So how can I tell from your writing which one you are? Honest question here. Does your writing express doubt, pose questions, use qualifications? Or is it judgemental and prescriptive…

Your comments have been repeatedly crossing into incivility. Could you please re-read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stop doing that?

Online arguments can certainly be annoying; we all feel this. That makes it more, not less, important to follow HN's rules.

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