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Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

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Re: Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

#21

Post by goshx »

vikramkr wrote: post #7
drcross wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short sellers have been causing the company a lot of trouble, Musk is correct in pointing them out so that their activities become known.

No, they really haven't. The best way to deal with shorts is to have a good quarter and crush them all. Or wait for a short squeeze. Lots of companies have misinformation spread by shorts all the time, but very few companies engage and attack shorts.

I don’t have any problem with someone shorting a stock if they don’t engage in spreading lies and trying to take the company down. If you don’t see what shorts are doing against Tesla, I recommend reading articles about them more often.

Re: Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

#22

Post by camjohnson26 »

Lendal wrote: post #15

I never see stories about Ford's current lawsuits, or GM or Chrysler. I'm curious what goes on behind the scenes to get stories like these published and pushed out onto social media sites across the globe. Must be a pretty expansive operation because I see it every week, same stuff week in and week out. Is it true that other companies don't have disgruntled employees? I find that difficult to believe.

If Pablo Escobar’s brother ever threatens Ford with a lawsuit over flamethrowers I guarantee it’ll make the news. Tesla gets more coverage because Tesla has a more dramatic story.

Re: Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

#23

Post by breck »

meritt wrote: post #13

https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/2-Pedestrians-Suffer-M... Pedestrian death from a Tesla just happened this afternoon. If this is found to be AP fault instead of driver fault, guessing we'll see AP banned by Wednesday.

Also about 10 pedestrian deaths happened this afternoon from non Teslas, driven by humans. And 20 yesterday. So I wouldn't jump to conclusions about whether "AP" will be banned anytime soon.

Source: https://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/pedestrian_safety/ind...

Re: Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

#24

Post by smallgovt »

kec wrote: post #12
kemiller wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla’s stock is shorted FAR more than any other company with comparable market cap. 30% of outstanding shares are shorted. It’s bonkers.

But which is the more likely causes of this: That TSLA is the victim of an evil coordinated effort to cause the company to take, or just that 30% of the market genuinely believes they're overvalued. Given they have a higher market cap than either Ford or Honda, I'd be betting on the latter....

It's not either or. It's safe to assume the vast majority of TSLA shorts believe the stock is overvalued. In addition, some minority of shorts take overt actions to hurt the company's share value.

Re: Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

#25

Post by AndrewBissell »

Retric wrote: post #14
kec wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But which is the more likely causes of this: That TSLA is the victim of an evil coordinated effort to cause the company to take, or just that 30% of the market genuinely believes they're overvalued. Given they have a higher market cap than either Ford or Honda, I'd be betting on the latter....

~“Markets can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.” Shorting a stock is not just a statement that you think the stock is overvalued. It’s a statement you think the stock will soon drop, because each short costs money and expires. Eventually being correct is useless. If for example it performs poorly over the next 20 years and never actually drops you will lose everything.

Shorting Tesla actually pays a rebate right now, because the stock is cheaper to borrow than the interest paid on the cash proceeds from selling it up front.

Re: Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

#26

Post by fouc »

twblalock wrote: post #18
drcross wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short sellers have been causing the company a lot of trouble, Musk is correct in pointing them out so that their activities become known.

There is nothing wrong with shorting Tesla. Short selling is a necessary corrective to overhyped stocks. If the short sellers are wrong about Tesla being overpriced, they will pay for it. They are taking all of the risk, and they are not hurting anything except Musk's feelings.

Apparently there's a bit more to that. Tesla is very leveraged right now and apparently it would be an issue if the share price dropped too much, forcing Tesla to do some sort of liquidity event?

So the big short sellers are trying to force the share prices down enough that Tesla is forced to deal with this, which would push the share prices down even more and let them profit hugely.

Re: Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

#27

Post by wpietri »

kemiller wrote: post #10
vikramkr wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they really haven't. The best way to deal with shorts is to have a good quarter and crush them all. Or wait for a short squeeze. Lots of companies have misinformation spread by shorts all the time, but very few companies engage and attack shorts.

Tesla’s stock is shorted FAR more than any other company with comparable market cap. 30% of outstanding shares are shorted. It’s bonkers.

It's not bonkers at all. Musk's strategy from the beginning has been hype-driven. This gives him low cost of marketing and low cost of capital. But the downside is that the stock will appear overvalued to observers who don't buy the hype.

This would be true even if things were going well and Musk were going from strength to strength. But Tesla has had a whole raft of problems, many of them self-inflicted. This is catnip to shorts.

Further, part of Musk's strategy has been to bank on the genius-founder stereotype. It has clearly paid off as well; I'd bet that that there's an order-of-magnitude difference between the percentage of people who can name Tesla's CEO and that of any other car company. But again, it's risky; if Musk quit or were forced out, confidence in the company would collapse. And he has made a number of unforced errors; no other car company CEO is in dutch with the SEC. This kind of risk is also hugely appealing to shorts.

It's also worth noting that the shorts were right. Tesla's managed to lose half its value from the peak, and it's still down something like 30%. Some of them have surely made a ton of money.

Re: Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

#28

Post by inlined »

hndamien wrote: post #20
meritt wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean it just happened 2 hours ago, so pending a formal police report, I imagine details will indeed be light. Here's aftermath footage and bystander details: https://twitter.com/JennyGShao/status/1153066059802402816 These sort of unfortunate accidents happen every day but any self-driving vehicle will be scrutinized. If the driver was in control and ran a red light, they're obviously at fault. If the AP went haywir…

AP is driver assist, so if the pedestrian isn't at fault, then the driver is at fault. Edit: Looks horrible. I hope the cameras caught the action and can apportion blame appropriately.

Also, current AP doesn’t support stopping at lights. The best it does is blare alarms if it thinks you are going to blow one.

So unless the driver has some beta software, I can’t imagine AP being blamed.

Re: Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

#29

Post by wpietri »

breck wrote: post #23
meritt wrote: post #13

https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/2-Pedestrians-Suffer-M... Pedestrian death from a Tesla just happened this afternoon. If this is found to be AP fault instead of driver fault, guessing we'll see AP banned by Wednesday.

Also about 10 pedestrian deaths happened this afternoon from non Teslas, driven by humans. And 20 yesterday. So I wouldn't jump to conclusions about whether "AP" will be banned anytime soon. Source: https://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/pedestrian_safety/ind...

Sure, but this is one of the predictable downsides of Tesla's high-visibility, high-hype strategies. We shouldn't jump to conclusions, but we shouldn't be surprised that an attention-seeking company gets a lot of attention.

Re: Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

#30

Post by imfromit »

Can someone explain to me (a simple European scrub) why these sorts of lawsuits seem to invariably target Elon directly? Surely they should be directed at Tesla, you know the company that employed them? Does adding Elons name to the lawsuit actually do anything in US law? Or is it merely to gain publicity by adding celebrity to a complaint?
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