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Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

thedrive.com

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Re: Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

#81

Post by firebones »

Ninjak2 wrote: post #74
__blockcipher__ wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tesla is very leveraged right now and apparently it would be an issue if the share price dropped too much In other words, the shorts are totally right to be taking their position? A company that depends on its stock price to stay afloat is not a healthy company. Let’s take AAPL as an example. Their stock could plunge to $1/share and they would be absolutely fine because they have positive free cash flow, and thus d…

In your example, Apple would not be absolutely fine. Key employees are compensated largely in stock and many would start looking for other jobs if their trailing four years of RSU grants suddenly became nearly worthless. Now Apple could step up and issue additional RSUs to employees to keep them onboard, but that has consequences too. So you can see how a tanking stock price is extremely disruptive, even if you don't…

Issuing additional RSUs for retention is something which, with their positive cashflow, they absolutely would do (handled by share repurchase) if the stock price dropped to the point it made rational sense. Who wouldn't stick around at Apple if they're printing money and your RSUs have a basis of $1?

Re: Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

#82

Post by unityByFreedom »

ghostly_s wrote: post #8
vikramkr wrote: post #4

Tesla (or at least Elon) has a terrible habit of engaging with critics in deeply unproductive ways, such as all the anti short seller stuff they pulled. It makes them look very defensive and seem like they feel vulnerable/cant face the criticism, and maybe it's because they actually are vulnerable and doing things that merit short selling and whistleblowing. At least from a PR perspective you dont want to engage like…

If you have any examples of companies who weren't doing something unsavory and had a recurrent problem with whistleblowers I'd love to hear them.

No need to rush to judgement, this will be an interesting case to follow,

> “It’s taken a long time to get to this point, and I remain steadfast regardless of any monetary outcome. The only thing we are guaranteed to take to our graves is our name. I’ve spent a career of integrity, and won’t stand idly by when someone like Elon Musk runs roughshod over others because he happens to be a billionaire.”

edit Please give me the courtesy of explaining downvotes. Thanks.

Re: Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

#83

Post by _bxg1 »

imfromit wrote: post #30

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?

These claims reek of personal vindictiveness, not corporate strategy. I honestly don't find it hard to believe that Elon has allowed his savior complex to become pathological, or that - like Zuckerberg and Kalanick - he's personally responsible for his company's most problematic behavior.

Re: Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

#84

Post by Ididntdothis »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #58
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....

Equity value (market cap + debt) the real measure of company valuation, since debt holders are owners too. Ford's EV is 145B (42B market cap + 103B debt). Tesla's EV is 56B (44.5B market cap + 11.5B debt). Ford and Honda are still valued considerably higher than Tesla.

Don’t profits make a difference there? Ford is actually making quite some profit.

Re: Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

#85

Post by derrick_jensen »

kneel wrote: post #64
Lazare wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find both extremely implausible, both individually and (especially) in combination.

You've never heard of rumor-mongering short sellers? Very much a real phenomenon, hard to catch them and it's very lucrative.

My favorite example of this is when 4chan spread a fake death rumor of Vitalik Buterin to make money on Ethereum

Re: Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

#86

Post by Dylan16807 »

__blockcipher__ wrote: post #46
fouc wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Tesla is very leveraged right now and apparently it would be an issue if the share price dropped too much In other words, the shorts are totally right to be taking their position? A company that depends on its stock price to stay afloat is not a healthy company. Let’s take AAPL as an example. Their stock could plunge to $1/share and they would be absolutely fine because they have positive free cash flow, and thus d…

> In other words, the shorts are totally right to be taking their position?

Many of the shorters just think the company's overvalued.

But anyone aiming for that event to trigger is making a bet that enough people will make the same bet, in deliberate disregard of whether the stock's value is appropriate for the actual business.

It's kind of like a prisoner's dilemma. Is it 'right' for someone to defect?

That motive isn't saying anything about the company. It's a pure meta-move. That places outside of the normal "markets efficiently allocate capital" logic. It's profitable but very much not efficient to swing your weight around and make a company go out of business in a way that owes you money.

Re: Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

#87

Post by wnorris »

vikramkr wrote: post #4

Tesla (or at least Elon) has a terrible habit of engaging with critics in deeply unproductive ways, such as all the anti short seller stuff they pulled. It makes them look very defensive and seem like they feel vulnerable/cant face the criticism, and maybe it's because they actually are vulnerable and doing things that merit short selling and whistleblowing. At least from a PR perspective you dont want to engage like…

There appears to be an active group working to create these stories in order to create a 'whistleblower hell'.

Elon occasionally does not help this, but authorities should look into the allegations that a group is actively manipulating Tesla employees for these types of stories.

https://cleantechnica.com/2019/07/21/were-cnbc-sources-tesla...

Re: Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

#88

Post by MegaButts »

grecy wrote: post #80
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.

There are trillions of dollars at stake in the auto industry that Tesla is trying to seriously disrupt. There are trillions of dollars at stake in the launch industry that SpaceX is trying to seriously disrupt. There are trillions of dollars at stake in the ride-share/taxi industry that Tesla/Elon is trying seriously to disrupt. There are a lot of people who are working very hard to paint a very negative picture of E…

> Follow the money

And yet if you do this at the actual companies (SpaceX, Tesla) or industries (rideshare) you mention, most traditional economists will tell you they have questionable futures based on their balance sheets (all of them have been consistently losing extremely large amounts of money for years) and some believe they will actually go to zero. So by following the money, it's not hard to see why some would think these companies are overvalued.

Re: Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

#89

Post by MegaButts »

sjwright wrote: post #79
pfundstein wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AP does actually "take control away" in that it performs some emergency safety maneuvers automatically. For instance it can swerve to avoid an imminent collision with another vehicle, but would it swerve into a pedestrian?

AP never override's the driver's steering wheel input and it never stops the driver from pushing the brake pedal. AP never takes control away.

While I am 99.9% certain you are correct, there is a chance it malfunctioned. What you are saying is exactly what people were saying when people first started claiming they couldn't stop their Toyotas from accelerating years ago, and then it turned out there was some merit to their claims.

Re: Tesla Enters “Whistleblower Hell”

#90

Post by danhak »

nradov wrote: post #71
optimiz3 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IDK man, TheDrive pushes non-stop anti-Tesla stories, it's not unreasonable to suspect their motives. Just look at their story history; not exactly unbiased.

I haven't seen any bias. Do you have specific examples of them reporting false or distorted news about Tesla?

Bias !== false or distorted news.

Selective reporting or withholding of information is a form of bias.

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