Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you claiming that Tesla vehicles are fraudulent and only drive when rolling down hills?
The number of Tesla haters on HN is bizarre.
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Grand jury indicts Trevor Milton, Nikola founder, on three counts of fraud
121–130 of 533 posts
Re: Grand jury indicts Trevor Milton, Nikola founder, on three counts of fraud
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
My first thought when hearing of the company was the J. T. Marlin "brokerage" from the movie Boiler Room . And for those viewers that didn't get the joke, the movie helpfully provides a scene where other brokers in a bar make fun of the uncanny resemblance to "J. P. Morgan". Bonus point for the ethical similarities between J. T. Marlin and Nikola.
This Nikola thing looks pretty weird indeed, but to be fair, Musk's name for his company is also not very original, since he (or whoever) also just took the dude's name even though he had absolutely nothing to do with him.
Tesla invented the AC motor which was used in the first roadster so thats why they named it that. Very logical…
Re: Grand jury indicts Trevor Milton, Nikola founder, on three counts of fraud
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
Copy / paste from elsewhere but here's a recent list of speculative investing bubbles and their outcomes: The Japanese Nikkei is still down 40% from 1989. That was 31 years ago. The Shanghai Composite index is down 45% from 2007. That was 13 years ago. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index is down 10% from the peak in 2007. The German DAX is a “total return” index that includes dividends. So it cannot be compared to the other…
That makes it look like you would have lost money if you’d put it into those indices. Looking more closely (I only bothered with Nikkei), that seems unlikely. Compared to the full year average for 1989, it’s only down 15 percent. Or zooming even further out, it’s nearly double the eighties average today. If a peak is short lived enough, it’s unlikely to strongly affect people investing steadily. It would be interesti…
My point still holds true. Down 15 per over 32 year period and inflation of the Yen is down 16%. This is one famous example of how speculative investing ends poorly. 3 decades of flatline at best. Look up Japanese lost decade. It's fascinating to read about and the eerily similar to current day US.
[1] https://www.inflationtool.com/japanese-yen/1989-to-present-v...
Re: Grand jury indicts Trevor Milton, Nikola founder, on three counts of fraud
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hey, you’re not going to like hearing this, and feel free to ignore, but $TSLA is c. 20% below it’s peak valuation and still is trading at 100x earnings on pretty mediocre growth. It’s still wildly overvalued, people don’t talk about it as much though since the price is flat, not up. Be careful of confirmation bias.
Tesla wasn't faking videos by rolling a nonfunctional truck down a hill. They're shipping almost a million cars a year now (looks to be like 850k in 2021 I think). Mine took me to Yellowstone a few weeks back. Now, sure, "overvalued" is a very reasonable argument. I'd even agree. That's not the kind of rhetoric that was deployed against the company and you know it. Which is why people didn't believe folks screaming t…
They had a video on their website for years (taken down very recently, I believe) that showed a FSD "self-driving" Tesla with the narrator saying something like "the driver is only present for legal reasons".
Re: Grand jury indicts Trevor Milton, Nikola founder, on three counts of fraud
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even the name screams transparent fraud, a ridiculously obvious attempt to associate with Tesla. Weren't there VCs who put money into this? What were they thinking? Were they being amoral and hoping to ride this pump and dump or did they actually buy into this shit?
> Weren't there VCs who put money into this? Definitely, but worse than that, real companies that really should have known better. GM associated themselves. For what reason I can’t figure out. It must have been high up because the GM engineers I know all knew it was a 100% scam. It’s like anything else that confuses me in business. Some idiot made a mistake, sure, but then their boss approved that, and all the other…
I read an article, over a year ago now, that said the GM deal was nothing but upside for GM
They got cash from Nikola whether they ended up manufacturing anything for them or not, and had to put up nothing up front.
Re: Grand jury indicts Trevor Milton, Nikola founder, on three counts of fraud
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even the name screams transparent fraud, a ridiculously obvious attempt to associate with Tesla. Weren't there VCs who put money into this? What were they thinking? Were they being amoral and hoping to ride this pump and dump or did they actually buy into this shit?
> Weren't there VCs who put money into this? Definitely, but worse than that, real companies that really should have known better. GM associated themselves. For what reason I can’t figure out. It must have been high up because the GM engineers I know all knew it was a 100% scam. It’s like anything else that confuses me in business. Some idiot made a mistake, sure, but then their boss approved that, and all the other…
One of the NKLA board members Steve Girsky was previously a Vice Chairmen at GM and likely facilitated this deal. I think it needs to be investigated further and Mary Barra should be forced to provide the evidence of due dilligence that GM collected during the closing of the deal.
Re: Grand jury indicts Trevor Milton, Nikola founder, on three counts of fraud
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that's very much a hindsight kind of thing. I mean, yes, Nikola was a scam. But in "the beginning" the only people willing to say that it was a scam were ones who sounded exactly like the much louder, better funded, and media-accessible people screaming that Tesla was a scam. This very site was filled with $TSLAQ nonsense. And it was all wrong, much of it deliberately so. The investment world is drowning in d…
In all fairness there was a non-zero chance of Tesla running out of money at one point. At the final word on Tesla being worth what it is hasn't been spoken neither. I do have to give Musk credit for being able to maintain Tesla the way he does, under everyone else the company wouldn't exist anymore. Not that I think Tesla is particularly well run so, but Elon's ability to entertain the market and keep money flowing…
The ability to run pump and dumps in crypto with impunity definitely helps.
Re: Grand jury indicts Trevor Milton, Nikola founder, on three counts of fraud
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
This Nikola thing looks pretty weird indeed, but to be fair, Musk's name for his company is also not very original, since he (or whoever) also just took the dude's name even though he had absolutely nothing to do with him.
I thought Musk joined after it had been founded? Did he change the name?
No, Musk had literally nothing to do with the name, just a continuation of his myth as anything more than a guy with a lot of money.
Re: Grand jury indicts Trevor Milton, Nikola founder, on three counts of fraud
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
You have to realize there are a LOT of people on here who fail to launch successful startups. Lots of projecting and sour grapes.
Ya, that's a good point, and I never thought about the selection bias.
Also, most people only read headlines. There has been so much FUD in the news about Tesla and Musk. If you’re not following things closely, watching all his interviews, etc, then it’s easy to believe what you read in sensationalized clickbait headlines
Re: Grand jury indicts Trevor Milton, Nikola founder, on three counts of fraud
#130Hindenburg Research was right then.