Has There Ever Been a More Polarizing Company?

[HabitualUser]

The unwavering short-sellers think the stock should be in the single digits, and eventually zero. The non-accredited die-hard true-believer longs were upset at the prospect of their shares being called in at $420. The media loves it all, as negative and/or outlandish headlines generate far more clicks than the usually boring business stories.

I've never seen a stock with more divergence and polarity. Does the positive long-term roadmap play out as expected by Elon, or will the haters continue to build momentum and rip the company apart through sheer hivemind negativity?

My view: The product itself is too good to fail. Not only are the satisfaction ratings sky-high, but the overwhelming majority of Tesla owners say their NEXT vehicle purchase will be another Tesla. This HAS to be taken advantage of by financial aggression, and the shorts mistake this as a lack of discipline.

Everything else (spliff puffs, lawsuits, departures of non-important and weak-minded officers) is pure distraction.

 

[Barklikeadog]

Sure there has, Ray-Ban.

 

[Vitold]

It is difficult to get a person to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!

Tesla is challenging and disrupting many established ‘job creators’. They will not go down without a fight.

 

[msvoyager]

It is difficult to get a person to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!

Tesla is challenging and disrupting many established ‘job creators’. They will not go down without a fight.

Agreed, when with "They" you meant 'established ‘job creators’. It reads to me as Tesla, I am sure that isnt what you meant

 

[Sprandt23]

Unfortunately we find ourselves in a very polarizing society these days, so I think this debate about Tesla/Elon is just following suit. We are also in an era of instant gratification and constant bombardment of 'updates.' I'm not saying technology is a bad thing, and social media hasn't done some great things for the world, but it has certainly changed it - and I think the polarization of Tesla is just a byproduct of how everything is viewed in our culture these days.

 

[dondy]

Plenty of companies. Starting with Dell, Apple, HP at some point. Apple had a very long fight with shorts. And there was plenty of anti Jobs noise in MM. They suddenly became his "friend" only after his death.

The situation with Musk is much worse.
He doesn't want give up control over SpaceX, he is largest owner and CEO of Tesla. These are the two major companies in two very critical industries. I am pretty sure his involvement in grid bussiness did not add friends there either.
Another two his companies are getting close to become similar level disruptors.
And he doesn't pay for advertisements in MM. If his strategy of direct sells will succeed the whole segment of modern economy is in direct risk.

 

[dgpcolorado]

Amazon is a polarizing company, for a variety of reasons. Don't know if it is true but I've read that Amazon has taken over the short selling lead from Tesla.

 

[strangecosmos]

I appreciate the question. Maybe someone can offer some perspective. I might just be too damn close to the thing. I bet if you spelunk deep enough into any area of interest, the noise will feel overwhelming and defeaning. I bet there are raging controversies in the world of anime that feel like raging culture wars to fans of anime, but that I've never even heard of.

I think any topic can become polarized and hostile. People are ready to get angry and start pointing fingers. Apparently scientists get quite heated over whether an asteroid or supervolcano killed the dinosaurs. It isn't just politics.

But politics does affect discourse on Tesla. Climate change, environmentalism, consumerism, and government subsidies are charged topics. So are unions and billionaires. A bunch of people are mad that Tesla doesn't make enough money, and another bunch are mad that Elon makes too much money.

Brett Winton found that Ford gets 5x as much news coverage as Tesla. Although I remember finding some evidence I my research that Tesla gets the most coverage of any auto company. I don't know.

Either way, I think there is definitely a Tesla bubble, and when you're inside the bubble it's easy to think the bubble is the world.

Recently I have been tuning out a lot more of the noise. It has started to feel less like anything actually important and more like just a bunch of people arguing on the Internet.

 

[achilles992000]

Elon is to blame, not shorts.

This is Elon's erratic behavior in only a few months! Warning signs.

1. yelling at analyst at quarterly conference call.
2. getting into Twitter fight with cave diver. why?
3. getting back into Twitter fight with cave diver.
4. strange twitter comment about going private at $420. i heard this has to do with pot.
5. Joe Regan interview where he smokes pot.

are shorts to blame for this behavior?

where is the board?
any truth to Azalea Banks comments that Musk did acid and tweeted? he can deny but he is doing Ambien and smoking pot now.

 

[Barklikeadog]

Elon is to blame, not shorts.

This is Elon's erratic behavior in only a few months! Warning signs.

1. yelling at analyst at quarterly conference call.
2. getting into Twitter fight with cave diver. why?
3. getting back into Twitter fight with cave diver.
4. strange twitter comment about going private at $420. i heard this has to do with pot.
5. Joe Regan interview where he smokes pot.

are shorts to blame for this behavior?

where is the board?
any truth to Azalea Banks comments that Musk did acid and tweeted? he can deny but he is doing Ambien and smoking pot now.

Sure there has, Maui Jim.

 

[dondy]

Elon is to blame, not shorts.

This is Elon's erratic behavior in only a few months! Warning signs.

1. yelling at analyst at quarterly conference call.
2. getting into Twitter fight with cave diver. why?
3. getting back into Twitter fight with cave diver.
4. strange twitter comment about going private at $420. i heard this has to do with pot.
5. Joe Regan interview where he smokes pot.

are shorts to blame for this behavior?

where is the board?
any truth to Azalea Banks comments that Musk did acid and tweeted? he can deny but he is doing Ambien and smoking pot now.

You have forgotten car fires, SEC investigations, autopilot failures and of course "safety investigations" and yeah nowhere to go without big drain of executives and inevitable bakwrupsy next half year because of "cash burn".
Now, you can go back to your cave in the Short Ville. Don't forget to take all your buddies with you.
Repeating BS doesn't transform it in botter, and your narrative is excessively boring or as Musk said "boneheaded".

 

[Uncle Paul]

Elon is a visionary, and has invested everything he has to change the world and reduce the chances of the extinction of mankind.

Saying he is out of line for posting a twitter, not obsessed with making money every quarter, or speaking in a non politically correct manner is missing his mission.

For years people have been upset with business owners for focusing exclusively on the bottom line and not caring at all for the effects of their products on the environment. They said that people are being too politically correct and do not say what they really mean.

Tesla is a new renissance man. Speaks his mind, accomplishes great things, is not politically correct nor a brown nosers. People think him strange, but his metrics for success are different than most people.

He has enough money to never need to work another day in his life, yet he works a hard, critical and exhausting schedule. He is willing to roll up his sleeves and work the line. He engages every day, trying to make his companies better.

We need more people like him. Much easier for people to try to cut him down than to accomplish anything on their own.

Short sellers have a place in the investment world, but when they become activists to tear a company apart they fail themselves.

 

[Uncle Paul]

People scoffed at other amazing visionarys too.
Edison was though to be a socially awkward recluse. When he was said to have tried and failed 100 times to make the incadescent lightbulb he simply replied he had not failed, but discovered 100 ways that would not work, learning from every experiment.

Wright brothers were looked at as two loonies. Everyone knew that heavier than air flight would never be useful. Told them to stick to bicycle making, as that was more practicle transportation. Look at avaiation now.

The railroad magnets were ostracised with constant publications on how many people died during the construction. Same with the Hoover dam. These projects ended up being huge benefits to mankind.

Henry Ford was thought a fool by paying his employees the relatively high salary of $5.00 per day. Pundits said that his assembly line work was inhuman, and yet these laborers were able to afford to buy a home, raise a family and buy a Ford of their own.
He made cars any color you wanted, as long as it was Black. Integrated the wood from parts packaging into floor boards of the cars, so nothing went to waste. Integrated his own production, making his own seats, window glass, tooling and lighting. Made his cars differently than others and was driven to reduce his production costs so he could lower his prices and allow more and more people to afford to buy one of this cars.
He constantly innovated to provide better cars. When the new models had reliability problems that might have doomed a lesser man, he dug down deep, got personally involved in engineering effective fixes.

Jonas Salk found a way to produce a vaccine inside another animal that would create a serum that could be injected into a human to allow our own bodies to develop a resistance to horrible diseases. He was called a charlatan and evil doer by many. He kept on with his research, at tremendous personal costs, and changed the world.

Could go on forever, but it is not uncommon for brilliant people to be attacked by the ignorant. They fear change.

 

[Barklikeadog]

Henry Ford was thought a fool by paying his employees the relatively high salary of $5.00 per day. Pundits said that his assembly line work was inhuman, and yet these laborers were able to afford to buy a home, raise a family and buy a Ford of their own.
He made cars any color you wanted, as long as it was Black. Integrated the wood from parts packaging into floor boards of the cars, so nothing went to waste. Integrated his own production, making his own seats, window glass, tooling and lighting. Made his cars differently than others and was driven to reduce his production costs so he could lower his prices and allow more and more people to afford to buy one of this cars.
He constantly innovated to provide better cars. When the new models had reliability problems that might have doomed a lesser man, he dug down deep, got personally involved in engineering effective fixes.

And then he got whupped by Sloan

 

[clmason]

I've never seen a stock with more divergence and polarity.

This was part of my investment thesis when I bought the Tesla IPO. I likened it to the Mac vs PC feud that had been ongoing for more than a decade. My theory was that when a company is very polarizing, half the market will love and half will hate it. Back then no one gave much thought to EV's but there were many vocal hard core gear heads hating on the Tesla Roadster. It was only a matter of time until Tesla's product line grew down market (in price) and more and more people were going to choose a side of the fence.

In short, I have no problem with Tesla being polarizing if that means half the market will buy.