Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable

[SpaceNuts]

I think we need to work with the mods to self-police going down rabbit holes. We cannot expect the volunteer mods to do everything for us.

If you see someone has already refuted a troll, resist the temptation to slam dunk on them again in this thread. If you really need to reply again, take it to another thread. And if they try and bait you into replying, just dislike it and move on. Topics that frequently cause rabbit holes already have their own dedicated threads. Unless there is breaking news about it that effects long-term investment theses, start the conversation in that thread.

If it's egregious misinformation, the dislike button is acceptable. It shows others that the post is disreputable without cluttering the thread.

How one find the dislike button? I could only find 3 buttons on the lower right hand side of a message, a Like button, a QUOTE button, and a Reply button.

 

[Doggydogworld]

The major problem is the high cost of operating their network. Waymo requires scores of humans monitoring every ride and intervening when things go wrong. And things go wrong far too often to turn a profit.

I agree. Cruise had the same issue, except worse. Anyone who thinks Tesla will magically avoid these costs is delusional. Tesla has great AI tech "for a car company", but not compared to Google.

Tesla could still win by cracking the business model. Waymo has no entrepreneurs. They are almost genetically incapable of finding and exploiting market niches, attracting valuable customers and driving utilization rates up. Nothing Musk says indicates he has the first clue about this market, but he's a fast learner and can iterate very rapidly until he finds customers and a working business model. Unless he loses interest and moves on to something "even better".

 

[Doggydogworld]

How one find the dislike button? I could only find 3 buttons on the lower right hand side of a message, a Like button, a QUOTE button, and a Reply button.

Hover over the Like button and a half dozen icons pop up.

 

[FastEddieB]

How one find the dislike button? I could only find 3 buttons on the lower right hand side of a message, a Like button, a QUOTE button, and a Reply button.

Push and hold the “like”button and a handful of options will appear.

Feel free to experiment with the “Informative” reply to this post!

 

[JoRoMo]

 

[scaesare]

I have an acquaintance who who worked in the Supercharger division and was let go. The story, according to him, is that Elon asked the head of the Division to make additional cuts to her team. She declined. Elon said make cuts or I will layoff the whole division. She again declined. With this version of events it would make sense that Tesla would hire back some of the dismissed employees. Also, if true, I don’t love this decision by Elon. You might be frustrated with the manager or even aspects of the supercharger division, but each of those employees has a family and firings should not be conducted so willy-nilly based on a conflict in between CEO and an upper manager.

My acquaintance is not sure if he would accept an offer to come back. This is a good way to hurt company culture and kill morale. Elon could have fired the division head and taken a more deliberative approach to downsizing, instead of taking his anger at the division head out on the whole division.

I guess the good news it that it appears the mass layoff had little to do with actual supercharger strategy or plans for the future growth, etc.

I think a lot of this discussion about the supercharger team firing (and the re-hires reported to have taken place), and it's potential PR impact, effect on employee morale, possible indication Tesla is getting out of the charging business, etc... misses what happens with many of the moves that Elon makes: the context of Elon's motivation is not factored in.

Looking at these actions in the context of "How typical businesses are run", "the immediate share price", "people's opinions or feelings", "his personal net worth", etc... is not how Elon looks at things.

He doesn't care about share price - He's said, if the near-term stock price concerns you, please sell our stock and don't buy it.

He doesn't care about how rich he can get. When he surpassed Bezos as richest man, he said: "Huh.. interesting. OK, back to work.."

He doesn't care about carrying dead weight. He's said "The longer it takes to fire somebody, the longer it's been since you should have fried them"

He's not overly sentimental - He fired his long time loyal personal assistant simply because he thought it represented an inefficiency.

He doesn't care about "sunk costs". If you've put lots of time, effort, and $$$ into an endeavor that appears to be the wrong direction, he'll scuttle it regardless if you are 95% there.


Here's what he does care about. What he considers "correct". Keeping ourselves from making the planet uninhabitable. The ultimate goal of preserving "the light of consciousness".

He also is of the opinion that because these are such laudable goals, in the long term they'll inarguably provide such value that they can be sustained, and he won't have to live to sleep on a friend's couch again, but will if he has to.


So, if the team reached 90% and there's no valid reason for not reaching 100%, that's not an A. It's a failure to reach what should have been, He's not afraid to fail (see also: how not to land an orbital rocket). But if you can't reach a reachable goal, he'll find someone who can.

If folks find that demoralizing rather than recognizing he's serious about getting things done, you probably aren't right for the team.

If people on the outside want to moan and groan, he doesn't really have time to spend arguing with them, he'd rather execute his better plan, and in time people will shut up when they recognize the value.


He's on the spectrum. He's a bit of a cyborg. He doesn't have time to be nice. He can't tolerate mediocrity, or even excellence that still falls short. He's driven by what he sees as a threat to the entirety of the human race.

The lens of he's got sh!t to get done, explains a lot, IMO.

 

[Chunky Jr.]

How one find the dislike button? I could only find 3 buttons on the lower right hand side of a message, a Like button, a QUOTE button, and a Reply button.

you might need a certain number of posts to unlock various features of the forum

 

[Zero CO2]

Just finished voting all my TSLA shares ... Fidelity was very late notifying me in Brokerage link account last Friday 5/10 ... i thought I had finished last week but had pending shares ..

I recommend especially if you have multiple accounts across multiple firms to verify you have accounted for all your shares ... i was clicking too fast and did not do the math on my share total.

Reminder : confirm all your shares have been accounted for ...

 

[Captkerosene]

I posted this on a Berkshire Hathaway board:



Musk recently said on X that WEB should invest in Tesla. Comments like this from Musk should be taken seriously. Remember the "Should I buy Twitter" statement. I put this in the same category, kind of an invitation.

In the past whenever anyone has speculated that WEB has or will buy Tesla shares I've always said there was a zero chance of that happening. We all know why: circle of competence, price and hard to predict earnings etc. Add WEB's sometimes mildly critical comments about Musk to the list as well.

But, right now there is a unique opportunity presenting itself: Musk wants out of many of the businesses he's in. Not because they are bad businesses - they're great businesses - but because he has better opportunities to focus his attention and limited resources on.

Musk started X.ai about a year ago. They're currently raising 6B at a 20B valuation. (20B out of nowhere ... nice.) Tesla is investing 10B this year on compute. I think Elon needs another 50 or 100B to fund his ambitions in AGI. (No small-ball here.) He seems very focused on AI/robotics and is cutting his Capex at Tesla to preserve the 26B that's already in the bank. (Musk recently commented on when Netflix spun off their DVD business in favor of streaming. He said to apply that logic to Tesla.) He's also commented that Tesla is "pivoting."

I won't go into whether a hard pivot to AI/robotics is a good idea. What's important is that Musk's open to some kind of transaction for his legacy businesses. Specifically, I think that insurance, stationary energy storage, Supercharger/Megacharger and lithium refining might be on the table. Less appealing would be solar and battery production. I could see hundreds of Billions of dollars deployed into these businesses over the next ten years at good rates of return. Combined, they have excellent products with huge and growing TAMs that are complementary to BRKs current businesses.

On the personal side of things. I think WEB and EM have always admired each other. Bill Gates was an issue but that is behind them.

What would a transaction look like? I have no idea. It needs to solve the capital deployment and growth stagnation issue for WEB and the capital needs and focus issue for EM.

Of course there's more speculation than fact in my comments above. A lot of connecting the dots with no clear picture. Still, stranger things have happened. I'll go back into my Tesla/BTC hibernation now.

So, what could this mean for the future structure of Tesla? One possible outcome would be the split of Tesla into two companies. All of the units discussed above (energy, Supercharger, insurance etc.) combined with the auto business separated from the FSD/AI/Robotics business.

A couple things this structure would accomplish:

1) Elon could have a higher stake in the Spinco and more control of the AI.

2) It would be much easier to make our FSD the global standard. I suspect much of the pushback that Tesla is experiencing licensing our FSD tech is because our competitors don't want to give their competitor (us) control of their futures. Who can blame them? By spinning out FSD Ford, GM, VW, Toyota might jump on board. I doubt they really want to sign on with a Chinese firm and they seem to be unable to do it on their own. Nvidia is making a strong push and if we don't act fast they could eventually catch us ... although I think we have a big head start.

 

[lafrisbee]

But that's trading, not long term investing. You are attempting to time the market, and if it works then great for you. Long term investing is holding a stock through the dips and climbs, buying more when it dips rather than selling out before the potential dips.

How many expected 2019 to be a bad year for TSLA and sold ahead of it, only to see the stock skyrocket at year's end?

I feel this is needed yet again:

Your "beliefs" are just that. And they fit into the religion scheme.
Religions: Do what we say till you die, then get your pay-out.
I'd rather set goals in life, and adjust them as the environment change.
Kudos to all those that have been able to deny themselves a pulled pork sammich because they are "investing" in their future.

 

[SpaceNuts]

Push and hold the “like”button and a handful of options will appear.

Feel free to experiment with the “Informative” reply to this post!

Thanks, push and hold works.
What are those 6 buttons means?

The light bulb buttons means "mind blown"?
The i in circle means "good information"?
Then you have Like button?
Hand down shall really be dislike button rather than disagree.
Smiley face means "happy" or "I am laughing at you"?
It is pretty clear what the Love button means.

 

[Zero CO2]

FWIW Elons 3 options here are 1000% reasonable.

The thing is, at the end he writes

"If none of the above are done, that manager will be asked to resign immediately."

Also totally reasonable.

But completely different from what Elon actually did- which is "If none of the above are done, that manager and 500 people below him who did NOT ignore my directive because they had no power to execute it will ALSO be fired"

If you have no way to motivate employees to follow your directions besides mass executions there's far more fundamental issues going on.

the insubordinate manager put the additional 80-90% of the 500 workers in play ... she could have followed orders and eliminated the 10-20% she was directed to let go... ... she could have simply executed the directive "F-around and find out" I guess she and all her subordinates found out ... Tesla is much larger than any of these individuals at this point

I agree it will be a short term hit on morale but a lot less than most large organizations where layoffs can drag on for months even years... in a couple weeks those still at Tesla will be solving the next problem and this will be in the rearview mirror ... the CT rearview mirror

 

[2daMoon]

Thanks, push and hold works.
What are those 6 buttons means?

The light bulb buttons means "mind blown"?
The i in circle means "good information"?
Then you have Like button?
Hand down shall really be dislike button rather than disagree.
Smiley face means "happy" or "I am laughing at you"?
It is pretty clear what the Love button means.

Mouse over each and they show what they call them

 

[lafrisbee]

That's true, unless....

Unless you also see the company about to release a transformative product that could catch the wild attention of the market. V12.4, with hands-free FSD could do the trick. Or maybe it's the first OEM deal. Or maybe it's a demo on 8/8.

We don't know when the street will finally say, "Wait a minute. This is real." But when it does, I don't want to be out of the stock.

(And btw, it's when, not if)

We only differ in what we see happening. You see something coming, and have no confidence in when. I see the same thing, but NOT soon. And I "see" retail investors abandoning Tesla for months to come.

And come on man? A "demo" by Elon make "investing" in TSLA more likely? No. Flat out "NO." Elon and Tesla don't move the needle with a demo any longer due to the failure of the demos ever becoming a reality. How many YEARS ago did Tesla "Demo" the cyber(NOTA)truck? 4680....hahahahahahaha. No one that knows Tesla (or is going to consider investing long term) will invest in Tesla because of a Tesla Demo. Next week, Next Month, Next year..or the year after, or the year after that. or that....

 

[2daMoon]

We only differ in what we see happening. You see something coming, and have no confidence in when. I see the same thing, but NOT soon. And I "see" retail investors abandoning Tesla for months to come.

And come on man? A "demo" by Elon make "investing" in TSLA more likely? No. Flat out "NO." Elon and Tesla don't move the needle with a demo any longer due to the failure of the demos ever becoming a reality. How many YEARS ago did Tesla "Demo" the cyber(NOTA)truck? 4680....hahahahahahaha. No one that knows Tesla (or is going to consider investing long term) will invest in Tesla because of a Tesla Demo. Next week, Next Month, Next year..or the year after, or the year after that. or that....

Is this difference in perspective all that surprising when one is that of a shareholder and the other is that of someone who sold most/all of their shares?

You made your choice, what is to be gained by trying to justify your decision to those who held through the bottom?

Since the time when you sold, your posts have sounded more and more like it is really you whom you want most to be convinced.

Apologies for the absence of confirmation bias being offered here. It seems unlikely that making more posts like these will change this.

 

[sunwarriors]

So, what could this mean for the future structure of Tesla? One possible outcome would be the split of Tesla into two companies. All of the units discussed above (energy, Supercharger, insurance etc.) combined with the auto business separated from the FSD/AI/Robotics business.

A couple things this structure would accomplish:

1) Elon could have a higher stake in the Spinco and more control of the AI.

2) It would be much easier to make our FSD the global standard. I suspect much of the pushback that Tesla is experiencing licensing our FSD tech is because our competitors don't want to give their competitor (us) control of their futures. Who can blame them? By spinning out FSD Ford, GM, VW, Toyota might jump on board. I doubt they really want to sign on with a Chinese firm and they seem to be unable to do it on their own. Nvidia is making a strong push and if we don't act fast they could eventually catch us ... although I think we have a big head start.

Isn't xAI Elon's AI company? Wouldn't that conflict with what they are doing if he were to spin out Tesla to a different AI asset? I suppose Tesla is purely focused on driving vs. other AI stuff like Grok which xAI launched, but if someone was at Tesla, it's probably a more desirable outcome to move over to xAI in terms of upside (~$18-$20 billion valuation if current/most recent round closes).

I have doubts that other OEMs would easily/willingly work with Tesla personally on FSD. I think something like Wayve (just secured $1 billion funding backed by Softbank, Microsoft, nVidia with very deep pockets) is far more of a threat as they are doing a similar thing without being viewed as a direct competitor to legacy OEM's bread/butter/auto/car business. Their tech is already used in OEM cars where Tesla would have to rework with Ford, GM, VW to find out where to put camera's, etc.

The supercharger network and OEM's signing up is a bit different I feel than self driving autonomy as no one was really working on charging successfully and as I've mentioned before, Wayve is already using another vehicle to do their self driving in city streets in the UK. Another factor I feel in recruiting is Wayve is worth far less making the challenge (underdog, mission, upside in success, $$) feels greater to me if anyone really wanted a challenge, maybe they are only worth $2-3 billion?

 

[sunwarriors]

Thanks, push and hold works.
What are those 6 buttons means?

The light bulb buttons means "mind blown"?
The i in circle means "good information"?
Then you have Like button?
Hand down shall really be dislike button rather than disagree.
Smiley face means "happy" or "I am laughing at you"?
It is pretty clear what the Love button means.

You must be on mobile, but in your order, it's:
Helpful
Informative
Like
Disagree
Funny
Love

 

[CorneliusXX]

I think a lot of this discussion about the supercharger team firing (and the re-hires reported to have taken place), and it's potential PR impact, effect on employee morale, possible indication Tesla is getting out of the charging business, etc... misses what happens with many of the moves that Elon makes: the context of Elon's motivation is not factored in.

Looking at these actions in the context of "How typical businesses are run", "the immediate share price", "people's opinions or feelings", "his personal net worth", etc... is not how Elon looks at things.

He doesn't care about share price - He's said, if the near-term stock price concerns you, please sell our stock and don't buy it.

He doesn't care about how rich he can get. When he surpassed Bezos as richest man, he said: "Huh.. interesting. OK, back to work.."

He doesn't care about carrying dead weight. He's said "The longer it takes to fire somebody, the longer it's been since you should have fried them"

He's not overly sentimental - He fired his long time loyal personal assistant simply because he thought it represented an inefficiency.

He doesn't care about "sunk costs". If you've put lots of time, effort, and $$$ into an endeavor that appears to be the wrong direction, he'll scuttle it regardless if you are 95% there.


Here's what he does care about. What he considers "correct". Keeping ourselves from making the planet uninhabitable. The ultimate goal of preserving "the light of consciousness".

He also is of the opinion that because these are such laudable goals, in the long term they'll inarguably provide such value that they can be sustained, and he won't have to live to sleep on a friend's couch again, but will if he has to.


So, if the team reached 90% and there's no valid reason for not reaching 100%, that's not an A. It's a failure to reach what should have been, He's not afraid to fail (see also: how not to land an orbital rocket). But if you can't reach a reachable goal, he'll find someone who can.

If folks find that demoralizing rather than recognizing he's serious about getting things done, you probably aren't right for the team.

If people on the outside want to moan and groan, he doesn't really have time to spend arguing with them, he'd rather execute his better plan, and in time people will shut up when they recognize the value.


He's on the spectrum. He's a bit of a cyborg. He doesn't have time to be nice. He can't tolerate mediocrity, or even excellence that still falls short. He's driven by what he sees as a threat to the entirety of the human race.

The lens of he's got sh!t to get done, explains a lot, IMO.

For some strange reason one of the weird tweets from Elon that sticks with me the most is from the Covid lockdown where he said "if you don't make any stuff then nobody has any stuff".

It (being any topic) is either done or it's not. If not, accept not, or change the situation until done.

 

[Musskiah]

Tesla China continues exporting vehicles as Q2 nears midway point

The second quarter is nearing its midway point, and Tesla China is still busy exporting vehicles to foreign territories.

www.google.com

 

[Musskiah]

As @Papafox has shown us over 60% short trading over multiple sessions this past week, we ought to see these numbers continue to creep upward. The latest short interest reports up to 4/30/24 bringing short interest to a nearly ATH, paradoxically near a relative minimum stock price - per usual for TSLA. Makes perfect sense, right? Nothing to see here folks.