Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#211

Post by this_user » Thu, May 03, 2018, 6:54 PM UTC

ttul wrote: post #7

Tesla is clearly flying close to the sun, and Musk is not incorrect to suggest that investors who can't take that kind of risk should not be along for the ride; however, it probably would have been more prudent to hold back on that pronouncement, given that many investors seem to have taken the hint and exited the stock... Tesla is a giant confidence game - as are most high growth opportunities.

I read through the transcript of the call [1], and it was not as bad as the headlines make it out to be. But unless they start delivering larger numbers of Model 3s, they will have to raise additional capital later this year or face running out of money. Tesla is still basically a startup and they were hours away from bankruptcy once before in 2008, so this is not entirely impossible. Musk claims they will be cash flow positive in Q3, but so far they have missed Model 3 production targets for the last three quarters, although they got close at the end of Q1.

Under these circumstances, it is not unreasonable for investors to hold you accountable and inquire about the financial situation and plans. Musk's conduct was unprofessional and he could have handled those questions more gracefully instead of dismissing them and berating the people who had been asking them. This kind of behaviour does not exactly inspire confidence, and burning your bridges with the very banks that you might need to raise money later on was certainly not his smartest move.

[1] https://seekingalpha.com/article/4169027-tesla-tsla-q1-2018-...

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#212

Post by danso » Thu, May 03, 2018, 6:54 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #199

danso wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wall Street sounds pretty terrible. So why isn't Tesla using a non-leaky money pipe?

> So why isn't Tesla using a non-leaky money pipe? If such a thing existed that would bring in the amount of money to Tesla that it has needed, it would.

If it seems Musk/Tesla have conceded to working with Wall Street in order to achieve its long term goals, then isn't it reasonable to assume Musk/Tesla does care about what Wall Street thinks?

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#213

Post by craftyguy » Thu, May 03, 2018, 6:54 PM UTC

dragontamer wrote: post #166

rawrmaan wrote: post #50

Elon has always seemed to have the attitude of "not everyone should invest in this stock". I find this refreshing. God forbid a CEO do anything except try to drive the share price as high as humanly possible. I don't know if this carries the same weight in a public company, but setting expectations with investors is super important in a startup and prevents a ton of wasted time wrangling investors who don't get the t…

> Elon has always seemed to have the attitude of "not everyone should invest in this stock". This is financial suicide for the company. TSLA needs more money this year or next year. Losing $1 Billion per quarter means he is relying on his shareholders each time he raises another round of equity. The $1.7+ Billion to build the Gigafactory was from the Stock Market ( https://electrek.co/2016/05/25/tesla-tsla-stock-offe…

Not really. Attracting the right kind of investors is more important to him than attracting all the investors. There are folks with dollars who can stomach TSLA, and there are folks who can not. Some might argue that it's better for the company overall (especially in the longer term) to attract the former and ignore the latter. The latter will generate a ton of noise, and cause great instability in the stock price because they frighten easily. Case in point: the price of TSLA today taking a dive because shareholders that cannot stomach TSLA are frightened for no good reason.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#214

Post by [deleted] » Thu, May 03, 2018, 6:54 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#215

Post by adamsea » Thu, May 03, 2018, 6:55 PM UTC

gnode wrote: post #128

paulcole wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Elon has always seemed to have the attitude of "not everyone should invest in this stock". Sounds like the CEO equivalent of a movie director saying "I didn't make this one for the critics." Translation, "I know there are problems but I'd rather have my ego stroked by fans than face real criticism."

It's more like a movie director deciding to make something other than a superhero action movie, and telling critics not to expect one. Not all investors have the same aims. Shaking off short-termist investors may be sensible to follow long term strategies. Sometimes public companies even have to become private again in order to pursue the course of action that's best for them.

Or like a director trying to convince a major studio to fund a super expensive non action hero movie ... it would be the major studios more so than the critics who would take issue with a non-blockbustery flick.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#216

Post by mcguire » Thu, May 03, 2018, 6:55 PM UTC

xkjkls wrote: post #174

21 wrote: post #98

Tesla earnings call was the best I've heard in a long time, says Jim Cramer (a CNBC popular analyst): https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/05/03/tesla-earnings-call-wa...

In the entertainment sense, sure. But Musk is running a $50 billion company, not performing stand up.

Jim Cramer, though, is.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#217

Post by [deleted] » Thu, May 03, 2018, 6:55 PM UTC

mephitix wrote: post #5

I was on this call. It was extremely cringey/embarrassing to hear Elon dismiss valid questions. At the same time, it was fantastic to see a young, smart, retail investor (Gali from Hyperchange) get to ask so many questions directly to the leadership team. I thought before the call that Gali would get to ask only one question, like the other analysts. He was able to ask almost 10! It was surreal. I was left feeling th…

[deleted]

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#218

Post by Nokinside » Thu, May 03, 2018, 6:55 PM UTC

mmsimanga wrote: post #167

Nokinside wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firstly, this was not some PR event. Musk had large number of people knew what they were talking about wanting to ask tough questions. What Musk is interested in is not relevant. Secondly, Musk can't avoid short term investor questions because unless he answers them, there may be no longer term. This kind of clear avoidance of difficult questions can easily add one percentage point to Tesla's future loans and reduce…

What Musk is interested in is not relevant. Could you explain this statement? It's good to have these kinds of questions but let's not forget the bigger picture. Musk is making a contribution to the world. The Wolf on Wall Street not so much.

The purpose of the call was to serve investors. Musk should have answered their concerns.

Normally investors listen forward-looking statements from CEO, but Musk has failed all his projections so many times that they are worthless. He says that he don't need to ask more money this year. Investors look at the numbers and don't believe it. He should give something useful that helps investors to asses the risk on their own and put number to it.

> Musk is making a contribution to the world.

Musk is not in trial. People just want to ask tough and important questions. Avoidance is not a good signal.

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#219

Post by dang » Thu, May 03, 2018, 6:56 PM UTC

txsh wrote: post #88

kneel wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because he's Elon Musk and he doesn't care about investor returns, he wants to build rockets, cars, tunnels, and explore space. No matter what he does he'll more than likely be fine on the money side.

He doesn’t want to do those things. He wants people to give him billions of dollars on the promise to do those things. Musk survives on putting in a minimal ammount of effort and having a great marketing team. The guy is a fraud.

Please don't do personal attacks here. It damages the community, regardless of what you think about Musk.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call

#220

Post by pranalli » Thu, May 03, 2018, 6:56 PM UTC

thaumaturgy wrote: post #36

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Sacconaghi pressed ahead with another query about Tesla lowering its 2018 capital expenditure projection to $3 billion, from $3.4 billion. Ahuja said the carmaker would spend less by simplifying its approach to automation and curtailing infrastructure outlays. 'And so where specifically will you be in terms of capital requirements?' Sacconaghi said. 'Excuse me. Next. Next,' Musk said to the call operator. 'Boring, b…

I'm not defending Elon's behavior here, but speaking more generally: if you're in a place where you need to maintain maximum productivity for a while, because a deadline has slipped for example, meetings can turn into a massive time sink if you don't act like a total nazi during them. In so many meetings, people just want to hear themselves talk, whether to offer some opinion, reiterate some point, or ask some useles…

There's nothing to "defend". These articles are entirely misleading and absurd. What he said wasn't even noteworthy.