41–50 of 119 posts
Musk's public statements are the nicest and most logical ones I've seen made by a modern CEO. No sense of spin. Always a pleasure to read.
From experience with 10-Ks and working on/seeing how financial documents are massaged, this felt very similar.
ninja Edit: grammar/language.
"Nonetheless, we have a duty at Tesla, having accepted this loan as a portion of our capital, to repay it at the earliest opportunity." Not sure why Elon and a lot of SV entrepreneurs feel this way. You take a loan; if it reduces your weighted average cost of capital, you roll it and/or pay it slowly. As a Tesla shareholder, I hope such cheap financing remains in place as long as possible to maximize shareholder retu…
The spirit of the loan was to help a promising company make progress on its technology. By repaying the loan early, the DOE will be able to make more loans out of that fund to other such companies. This might not minimize Tesla's cost of capital, but I'd say it's the right thing to do if it doesn't add undue risk to the company.
Right or wrong as a matter of managing your finances this is just not something a competent CFO would allow on his watch.
You accepted a loan, the loan originator had some terms and you are both in compliance and acceptance of those terms.
There is no rational or financial reason to make that choice.
I understand doing good, but there is a consistency in the choices firms which do good make. This is inconsistent.
I'm a huge Elon Musk/Tesla/SpaceX fan, and have often felt it would be the ultimate opportunity to work at either company (Tesla would be my first choice, as automotive interface tech is one of my passions). However, doing a quick bit of research earlier today, a search for "Tesla working environment" turned up more than a handful of reports by former and current employees that hint at an unpleasant company culture.…
I'm a huge Elon Musk/Tesla/SpaceX fan, and have often felt it would be the ultimate opportunity to work at either company (Tesla would be my first choice, as automotive interface tech is one of my passions). However, doing a quick bit of research earlier today, a search for "Tesla working environment" turned up more than a handful of reports by former and current employees that hint at an unpleasant company culture.…
I have a bunch of friends who work at Tesla. They do work hard, one of whom works waaaaay too hard, but it's meaningful work. They're changing the world. It's a similar feeling I get from people I know who work at Apple.
Musk's public statements are the nicest and most logical ones I've seen made by a modern CEO. No sense of spin. Always a pleasure to read.
I often say things like that, and it never works to my benefit. I'm trying to cut it out. It indicates frustration with the audience, and it almost always comes across that way.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ok, even though i am generally pro tesla and like musk, in order to prevent this from becoming a total worshipfest i will provide some facts that elon is not sharing. It is true that tesla has made all their payments under the doe loan agreement. But they were not in total compliance with said agreement. The agreement required that tesla keep certain financial ratios up to certain levels, and tesla failed to do that.…
Well, he seems to address this directly where he states: "We did suggest that holding nine months worth of principal payments in advance in a reserved account was a bit extreme and, moreover, was never part of our original loan agreement. The DOE agreed and reduced the advance payment reserve account to six months." You saying "keep certain financial ratios up to certain levels, and tesla failed to do that. As a resu…
Which debt covenants were breached? Often times they put these checks in when they think something bad is going to happen. Then a couple of years down the line they mean absolutely nothing, are breached (usually because the company has forgotten about one of them and accidently breaches them) and need to be restructured with the lender asking for something in return.
Sounds like something like the above happened?
Musk's public statements are the nicest and most logical ones I've seen made by a modern CEO. No sense of spin. Always a pleasure to read.
I don't know much about him as a person and as a speaker, but his first few paragraphs flagged my BS meter at "!full disclosure" From experience with 10-Ks and working on/seeing how financial documents are massaged, this felt very similar. ninja Edit: grammar/language.
This seems very straight-forward.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have a bunch of friends who work at Tesla. They do work hard, one of whom works waaaaay too hard, but it's meaningful work. They're changing the world. It's a similar feeling I get from people I know who work at Apple.
Nothing wrong with working hard, but the "below average compensation" is something to look at a bit more closely.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The spirit of the loan was to help a promising company make progress on its technology. By repaying the loan early, the DOE will be able to make more loans out of that fund to other such companies. This might not minimize Tesla's cost of capital, but I'd say it's the right thing to do if it doesn't add undue risk to the company.
No you would never do this. Right or wrong as a matter of managing your finances this is just not something a competent CFO would allow on his watch. You accepted a loan, the loan originator had some terms and you are both in compliance and acceptance of those terms. There is no rational or financial reason to make that choice. I understand doing good, but there is a consistency in the choices firms which do good mak…
As of last quarter, Tesla had $777M in assets and a whopping $715M in liabilities--leaving a net balance of only $64M. Given that their balance sheet is decreasing by an extraordinary $30M a month, that would have left only two months until the company was insolvent. No wonder the U.S. government wants their $465M paid back more quickly than planned. The company has lost over $850 million since being founded in 2003.
Strictly speaking, the balancesheet is irrelevant to Tesla's solvency.
My tennis club owns a property worth $20m from which it operates. It has debt of only $1m and repayment obligations of $100,000. It generates net revenues of $90,000. It is insolvent, with net assets worth $19m.
My startup technology company has no assets other than goodwill and intellectual property. It has no revenues. It has a line of credit from a financier sufficient to cover all expenses. It is solvent, with $1m of net liabilities.