Imagine how wonderful it would be if Tesla would announce on the Q1 earnings call that it was going to pay for the new India GF with the $1B in BTC profits, and that Tesla would reinvest the original $1.5B in Cathy Wood’s ARK funds.
While I can't really see how it aligns with Tesla's business model to buy Bitcoin, I can sort of accept the underlying rationale that it diversifies the exchange-rate-risk inherent in a multi-currency business. Maybe. Or perhaps its a clever, short term investment (announce the BTC-investment, wait for this to cause an increase in the price, then sell for a profit and be done with it).
However, I find it disconcerting when there are actual investments - or suggestions of investments - of Tesla's cash into something that is not actually aligned with Tesla's business model.
To me this suggests a belief that Tesla's cash is not best spent furthering its own business model, but better left to someone else to look after.
I belong to an unfortunately too small group of people who actually understand the meaning of exponential growth. So I understand as well as everyone else - or possibly even better - that a company that already grows by a staggering 50% annually really cannot hope to further increase that insane growth rate by spending _more_ money on growth.
But still, Tesla has some of the brightest minds around and have found innovative solutions to all kinds of different problems. So I am somewhat disappointed that they have not chosen to spend some money on aspects of their own business that would pay back in the longer run. I mean Elon Musk goes on about how it is insanely difficult to mass produce cars cheaply and that Tesla need to play a 'game of pennies' and how Tesla need to save on all aspects of its business. Fine - and I guess they got rid of their barnacles on barnacles.
Well, if Tesla has so much cash that they can't meaningfully spend it on growth, maybe they should think about how to spend it in on their own business in a manner, where it still comes back to them at a later stage.
For example, Tesla does not allow transfer of FSD from one car to another (something that I am so far unaffected by, but which is a real problem for people who total their FSD-equipped Tesla). Well, maybe the goodwill gotten from introducing conditions under which FSD could be transferred would give them more goodwill - and maybe help some doubters that FSD is actually worth it.
I have been to an understaffed, overworked service center, and I don't think I am the only one. So increasing the staffing on understaffed service centers would increase customer satisfaction.
Or what about increasing the amenities at certain superchargers, like making sure there something as simple as sufficient waste bin capacity ? Something more expensive, but excellent for Tesla's image would be PV-roofs over more supercharger stations - even if Tesla couldn't spare battery cells for storage there, they could negotiate the right to sell power back to the grid. Actually, with e.g. 3kW PV per stall, Tesla could initially accept the lower capacity factor from having no storage at all. Anyway, it should be easy to come up with ideas for how to put a bit of that cash to work, directly furthering the company's goals.
Prove me wrong.
