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Tesla Q1 2020 Update

ir.tesla.com

241–250 of 391 posts

Re: Tesla Q1 2020 Update

#241
post #180

Hmmm, I have been a ardent Tesla supporter for many years and actually own 2 teslas (my post history would confirm that), but alas starting today I am done with Tesla and Elon. I have given him a pass for - Promising autopilot in 15 days (after they abruptly terminated their contract with mobile eye) when I bought my model S in 2016 - saying FSD features are 3-6 months away in 2016 (some of these features launched th…

I wonder if it’d be better with him more removed from the CEO role. I really like how innovative their designs are. But being abusive is a damnation.

Re: Tesla Q1 2020 Update

#242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk is worth $38.5 billion based on his current Tesla stock holdings at their current valuation. If he hits the trigger in his compensation package, he gets even more Tesla stock which will vastly increase his net worth on paper Also, Musk is loaded with debt because he leveraged his stock holdings to live a very lavish lifestyle, including multiple residential properties, vehicles, and very expensive dining choices…

This might make sense for $38.5 million . For $38.5 billion, no lifestyle choice in the world has any impact on that money.

Elon Musk does not have $38.5 billion in unencumbered cash. Almost all of his cash is from loans taken against his Tesla stock.

If Tesla stock loses value, Elon Musk faces the risk of a margin call. In fact, this almost happened last year and the year before. It's one of the reasons that he wastes so much time going after shorts; it's not for fun--it's a matter of personal financial survival.

Re: Tesla Q1 2020 Update

#243
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just don't want a batshit crazy person running a company I invest in.

You are completely free to not buy Tesla stock. I for one want to have a company I invest ran by that type of person. Nobody is forced into buying stocks and if you disagree with how one is ran you are welcome to sell

What's the point of even writing a comment like this? Comprised of completely obvious platitudes. We all know that we don't have to buy Tesla stock or can sell it if we decide we don't like the CEO.

The point that people are making is that Elon is being highly irresponsible outside his management of the companies he is running (where he is doing a stunningly good job). He is also a public figure with a massive twitter following and the comments he is making on Covid-19 are misinformed and blind to existential & systemic risk and therefore dangerous. Even he has realised that with some, as shown by his deletion of a few of the stupider tweets. But as yet he hasn't apologised for or recognised the harm he has done. Fine for him to have an opinion, even a stupid one, but as a public figure there is responsibility on him to be much more circumspect in publicly sharing it.

Where is Elon acknowledging that if he hadn't been part of the crowd who were downplaying the risk through January, February, March and even now, the US may have acted sooner and thus limited the need to shutdown or, like Taiwan who started acting on December 31st last year, not have had to shut down at all?

Re: Tesla Q1 2020 Update

#244
post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk is worth $38.5 billion based on his current Tesla stock holdings at their current valuation. If he hits the trigger in his compensation package, he gets even more Tesla stock which will vastly increase his net worth on paper Also, Musk is loaded with debt because he leveraged his stock holdings to live a very lavish lifestyle, including multiple residential properties, vehicles, and very expensive dining choices…

> If he hits the trigger in his compensation package, he gets even more Tesla stock which will vastly increase his net worth on paper . Elon currently holds ~34 million shares of Tesla. If TSLA market cap hits a 6-month running average of $100 billion his first of 12 tranches of stock options vest, which is 1.69 million shares at $350 per share. Musk will spend $591 million to buy the 1.69 million shares, which on th…

2.2% more stock is a huge amount of stock when you're already talking about the company's biggest individual shareholder.

That aside, a HNWI would never liquidate stock to exercise options or to pay taxes, since each action triggers a realization event and an associated tax liability. They would take out loans secured by the stock, since that doesn't result in a huge tax bill. So in the real world, Musk would use the $591 million cash he already has in the bank (having previously taken out loans against his Tesla shares) and use that to exercise his options. He would then use some of the remaining few billion in his bank account (again, from the loans secured by his Tesla shares) to pay any state and federal taxes owed. The only time HNWIs deliberately trigger taxable events is when they have losses or credits to absorb the resultant tax liability.

Re: Tesla Q1 2020 Update

#245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of his current wealth on paper, yes. But almost all of Elon's wealth is in the form of his stock holdings, and stocks fluctuate in price. Moreover, his cash is almost all leveraged from his stock, and if the price collapses again, he could be wiped out by the margin call.

Or....he structured it as "let me borrow 60% of X, and here as some shares worth X as collateral.". Aka synthetically manufactured selling shared without actually doing it in order to fund his lifestyle. Depending on the advance rate (the 60% in this case), someone will do that deal. To take it to the absurd. If Elon wanted to fund his $35M daily party habit in the comment above, and he said to a bank "here is 3 bill…

A $35m daily party habit would cause problems to Elon's wealth, among other things.

Re: Tesla Q1 2020 Update

#246
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>- Musk venting with "FREE AMERICA NOW" tweet makes him seem almost crazy Musk is on the verge of a three quarter of billion dollar windfall if Tesla's six month average market cap exceeds $100b. I would guess that motivates his desire to open as soon as possible. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-stocks-musk/teslas-...

I doubt it. He's worth $38.5 billion; $26b of that is in Tesla. He can shave off hundreds of millions of dollars from that any day of the week - if he cared to do so. The compensation package is relatively small compared to his existing wealth already contained in Tesla. Wanting the company to succeed is what most likely motivates him, not the compensation package (which is aligned with his existing interests, even i…

> Monday’s rally put Tesla’s market capitalization at $145 billion. Importantly for Musk, its stock market value reached a six-month average of $96 billion. Hitting a six-month average of $100 billion would trigger the vesting of the first of 12 tranches of options granted to the billionaire to buy Tesla stock as part of his two-year-old pay package.

> Each tranche gives Musk the option to buy 1.69 million Tesla shares at $350.02 each. Taking Monday’s Tesla closing stock price of $798.75 as an example, Musk could sell those shares for a profit of $758 million.

So it's $750m profit in each of the 12 tranches (assuming $TLSA holds)! That's nearly $9B in profit.

Re: Tesla Q1 2020 Update

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fairly honest, lots of extremely competent people hold some batshit insane opinions about a lot of pretty important things. I posit Steve Jobs and his alternative therapy beliefs: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4924574/

The difference being that Steve Jobs wasn't up at 2 am in the morning ranting about taking his company private at 420. The reason why there's a pretty compelling reason to point out that Steve Jobs was a good leader was because he actually did good things, and the company struggled in his abscence. What has Elon himself actually done that looks like good management? Put an adult in charge of the company and see if th…

> What has Elon himself actually done that looks like good management?

Plenty. I'm a huge critic of Elon's tweeting on Covid-19 (see elsewhere in this thread) but to argue that Elon is not a good manager of the companies he runs is completely in conflict with reality (the reality of his successfully founding and running two massively successful companies).

Re: Tesla Q1 2020 Update

#248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt it. He's worth $38.5 billion; $26b of that is in Tesla. He can shave off hundreds of millions of dollars from that any day of the week - if he cared to do so. The compensation package is relatively small compared to his existing wealth already contained in Tesla. Wanting the company to succeed is what most likely motivates him, not the compensation package (which is aligned with his existing interests, even i…

People don’t get and stay rich by not earning money.

Unless you say inherited a giant amount from your family, which can cover a lifetime amount of idiocy. Hmm.

Re: Tesla Q1 2020 Update

#249
post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually there was a big difference between this tweet (expressing his opinion) and the 420 tweet, which was a statement on a material fact. There exist special laws for CEOs of all public companies, and he should be extremely careful about those statements. The new CFO helps Elon with those though, and Elon just gives really boring statements about the future numbers (as opposed to the products, where he can get mor…

I think those "special laws" harm me as an investor. Corporate speak does not make my job as an investor any easier.

As an investor in Tesla, it's easy to agree. As an investor in Enron, prior, I'm not sure.

Re: Tesla Q1 2020 Update

#250
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Will Elon stop with tweets that hurt Tesla? Appoint a CEO, or COO to run things People have been saying that for years and years. It's beyond stale. Meanwhile Tesla and SpaceX have continued to succeed beyond expectations for over a decade now. If there's occasional twitter volatility in-between simultaneously landing two rockets returning from space... so be it. Besides, if it bothers you that much, you don't have…

Of course what Musk does matters. He's the CEO. And his erratic and reprehensible behaviour is degrading the Tesla brand as well as reaffirming the long held idea amongst shareholders that he is too unstable to be running the company.

It's not degrading the Tesla brand though. Tesla is the second largest automaker in the world by market cap. Toyota, the only company larger than Tesla, was founded 65 years before Tesla. What Musk (and all Tesla employees) have built so far is nothing short of astounding. To imply he's leading them to ruin with his unfiltered twitter account could not be farther from the truth.
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