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

[johnm6875]

Another update. My delivery date has been moved to Aug 18 to October 13 (from Dec 22-Apr23)

Looks like you're going to need the split to "hurry up" for a free X.

 

[Krugerrand]

OT Weekend; I believe this pretty well represents where we are in the timeline of US history:

I think Elon might agree. And since he won't play by those rules, we have a battle ahead. Again, but perhaps much bigger than what we've been witnessing. And Elon may well be able to afford it. Or maybe not.

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I am only slightly amazed that so many here just think it’s best to follow the status quo. To just do it the way it’s always been done because a) that’s easiest, b) those are the rules or c) it’s how it’s done and rocking the boat is frowned upon. You can’t fight City Hall!

Rock on, Elon! Make everyone in your way to a better future for humanity uncomfortable, accountable and/or poorer.

And I continue to vote for bringing back dueling as a form of dispute resolution.

 

[bkp_duke]

That's confusing. Wouldn't you want to tailor your appeal based upon the political leanings of each friend rather than your own political identity?

The comment was based upon the likely political affiliation of the "pool of friends" you are talking to at the moment. That was all.

 

[insaneoctane]

.... Hopefully, they can root cause it.

Yes, but the news articles will have already sensationalized the story. If this proves to NOT be a battery fire, what percentage of the readers that have already read the article and saw images or video of the Tesla on fire will actually hear that update?

 

[The Accountant]

I have spoken to many Tesla owners over the past 3 years and I have found that the reason for buying a Tesla falls into one or more of the following categories:

Climate Champion: Getting off fossil fuels
Performance Enthusiast: 0-60mph in under 2 seconds, instant acceleration, etc
Technophile: Touch Screen, Voice commands, mobile app, OTA updates, FSD, etc
Budget Minded: No gasoline costs, no oil changes, etc

Tesla cars appeal to many people from different walks of life. My 91 year old Father in Law can't stop talking about how awesome my wife's Model Y is.
The technology blows him away (he's a huge iPad user). He's always in the back seat asking us to engage autopilot and FSD.

I have a 30 min commute that I do about once a month from Connecticut to New York. In 2019, I would count 1 maybe 2 Tesla's on the road.
Last week I counted 21 on that 30 min ride.

 

[The Accountant]

Looks like you're going to need the split to "hurry up" for a free X.

Haha - I was going to mention that in my post. Using a small portion of that cash, I got in at $640. I think I will do alright.
Maybe enough to pay for my FSD.

 

[dhanson865]

So many ways to get through the "profession driver" regulation if needed.

Send every tester a 1099 of 1 dollar a year and we are now all subcontractor employee of Tesla testing FSD "professionally" as there are zero metrics in determining who is a professional or not besides if you are getting paid for or a volunteer.

Then the next quarter right before earnings or just after the earnings call some analyst goes apesugar about how the number of employess at Tesla ballooned and isn't sustainable. Revenue per employee dropped drastically this quarter.

 

[EVNow]

It is the law that in certain strategic sectors foreign companies cannot own more than 50%. In non-strategic sectors foreign can own 100% unless the foreign are the neigbours i.e. Pakistan/China/Bangladesh. Automotive and energy are definitely strategic and so would require approval by Indian government. It is that approval that has been one of the two main issues being negotiated.

The allowed ownership hasn’t changed in past 20 years (may be got a bit more liberal). So, that’s not my question.

Is there any link to show that ownership % was indeed a sticking point ? If it’s your guess/speculation, just say so.

All we see is tax on full car imports and China as a source.

 

[Big Dog]

I have spoken to many Tesla owners over the past 3 years and I have found that the reason for buying a Tesla falls into one or more of the following categories:

Climate Champion: Getting off fossil fuels
Performance Enthusiast: 0-60mph in under 2 seconds, instant acceleration, etc
Technophile: Touch Screen, Voice commands, mobile app, OTA updates, FSD, etc
Budget Minded: No gasoline costs, no oil changes, etc

Tesla cars appeal to many people from different walks of life. My 91 year old Father in Law can't stop talking about how awesome my wife's Model Y is.
The technology blows him away (he's a huge iPad user). He's always in the back seat asking us to engage autopilot and FSD.

I have a 30 min commute that I do about once a month from Connecticut to New York. In 2019, I would count 1 maybe 2 Tesla's on the road.
Last week I counted 21 on that 30 min ride.

I'm a huge fan of my model 3's, but wouldn't fit into any of your four categories. Yes, I can appreciate all four, as nice-to-haves, but none of them drove my purchase, which was just the simplicity of an EV.

btw: 'budget-minded' is kind of a stretch, since an electrified version of an ICE costs xx thousands more up-front, so the savings (gasoline, oil changes) payback is years for most folks.

 

[wipster]

I agree because correlation implies causation. By extension, Elon’s behavior and all the Tesla hit pieces are also the reason the NASDAQ is down 27% since January. He’s single-handedly crashing the entire stock market, that jerk. Why oh why won’t he just stop tweeting?!
(TSLA’s beta is about 2 by the way.)

No one in the Rust Belt wants Teslas, true. Too bad the Cybertruck was vaporware that’s never coming out. I forget…how many preorders do they even have for Cybertruck? Like 25? Now that the Hummer and F-150 Lightning are going to flood the market with over a thousand trucks per year it’s too late for Tesla anyway. Also 500 miles of range and bulletproof exterior is for sissies. That’s too easy. A real truck guy can find a way to make do with 200 miles and needs no truck armor because he is prepared by wearing his own Kevlar body armor 24/7 and he knows the best defense is a good offense, so he always keeps a shotgun in his spare hand. Soon we’ll get a sad but uplifting country melody from Luke Bryan about drinking Budweiser on the side of the road and walking home because his truck ran out of charge. Pure Americana . Cybertruck won’t get that kind of free marketing.

Although most of us knew it, you forgot the

/s

 

[bigsmooth125]

Any legal eagles who can clarify the difference between Tesla's legal team and this litigation department?

Are they going to practice constitutional law or something more Tesla related like fight the dealership laws. I hope it's the latter.

Lawyer here. I've been trying to resist chiming in this week, particularly regarding the Elon's political tweets which I don't think were a smart idea but on this lawyer-recruiting tweet I feel compelled to give my input. Most corporations will have a legal department that oversees and assists outside lawyers that the corporation retains for specific legal matters. In my experience it's always the outside lawyers who file and direct the lawsuits. This is in part because corporations will retain different lawyers, even ones who work in litigation, who specialize in different areas, e.g,, employment, intellectual property, mass torts, etc. And then you can have different lawyers who specialize in different phases of trial--pretrial, trial, appeals before state courts vs federal vs the US Supreme Court. It's all highly specialized at the big league level in which Tesla plays. Hiring in-house lawyers or retaining outside counsel is typically the job of the general counsel, the corporation's head lawyer, because it's he or she who is knowledgeable about the players in the legal field. It bothers me that Elon would resort to Twitter to recruit lawyers. I don't understand it honestly. He clearly is frustrated for some reason with Perkins and Cooley, two powerhouse law firms, but there are plenty of other major league legal players to choose from.

One final rant, if you want to call it that. It bothers me that people on here are so dismissive of those who express concern or negative sentiments about Tesla or Elon, especially by those who are clearly long-time Tesla supporters. Criticize or challenge other people's reasoning by all means but comments like "sell the stock if you don't like it" or "go buy another car" do not advance any debate.

 

[yttrasil]

Having spent a decade and a half as a top discovery consultant my takeaways on this approach are that it works to a point. Tobacco did this very well for decades..until they lost and got crushed and basically capitulated completely and broke apart the tobacco/govt ag lobby.

I believe the California DFEH stuff is nonsense best settled for a pittance. Cost of doing business, etc but it is ridiculous. By litigating you paint a red bullseye and raise the potential of discovery wars which are always expensive and always potentially damaging.

Courts will not appreciate a litigate at all costs approach. When the judge sits everyone down and says it is time to settle and stop wasting our time...it is time to settle. Tesla could litigate anyway..that's a right but the judge will not do any favors at that time and I can promise you that Teslas information governance policies will be sorely tested in such an event. Plaintiffs will win every discovery argument. Every email from a tesla engineer re FSD will be reviewed, anything negative highlighted, many many engineers deposed. You could have the entire FSD management team spending weeks every year just in deposition much less in prep for depositions. Someone could delete an email they shouldn't have...then it really hits the fan and you end up with 9 figure discovery bills. That's not an expense that's recouped.

For this reason almost no one takes the litigate every case. Further, Tesla is making no friends with the regulators; regulators and plaintiffs can cooperate very effectively- just ask VW.

To add, the one game theory criticism I can think of if one always decides to settle is that it incentivizes further lawsuits/class actions against a company. Everyone know that as long as you have any kind of small chance to win, you will get a settlement out of it (Elon Flight Attendant?). That will invite more court cases as there is a lot to gain from a company like Tesla with little to no risk, even if costs starts to escalate in the process. If instead one chooses to fight instead of settling per default, there is always a big risk of failing while having to also pay additional costs of the second party. If one has a >5% chance of being financially ruined by pursuing a case against Tesla/Elon as the costs would in each and every case escalate, one would need to have a very good insurance before ever thinking of that option.

Theoretically the decision to in "just causes" pick the fight might prove to be a cheaper option than letting the cases pour in even further down the line and will make people/companies think twice of escalating the litigation industry.

That is the logic in deciding on this path, I might be totally wrong on the matter but that is the argument I can make for such a decision without having any in depth knowledge into litigation

 

[traxila]

Having spent a decade and a half as a top discovery consultant my takeaways on this approach are that it works to a point. Tobacco did this very well for decades..until they lost and got crushed and basically capitulated completely and broke apart the tobacco/govt ag lobby.

I believe the California DFEH stuff is nonsense best settled for a pittance. Cost of doing business, etc but it is ridiculous. By litigating you paint a red bullseye and raise the potential of discovery wars which are always expensive and always potentially damaging.

Courts will not appreciate a litigate at all costs approach. When the judge sits everyone down and says it is time to settle and stop wasting our time...it is time to settle. Tesla could litigate anyway..that's a right but the judge will not do any favors at that time and I can promise you that Teslas information governance policies will be sorely tested in such an event. Plaintiffs will win every discovery argument. Every email from a tesla engineer re FSD will be reviewed, anything negative highlighted, many many engineers deposed. You could have the entire FSD management team spending weeks every year just in deposition much less in prep for depositions. Someone could delete an email they shouldn't have...then it really hits the fan and you end up with 9 figure discovery bills. That's not an expense that's recouped.

For this reason almost no one takes the litigate every case. Further, Tesla is making no friends with the regulators; regulators and plaintiffs can cooperate very effectively- just ask VW.

Think Elon is very chagrined about this SpaceX sexual harassment suit that they settled. Came back to bite him in the ass like nothing was settled and of course he is guilty because they settled.

So his response now: NEVER SETTLE. COUNTERSUE. ATTACK BEST DEFENSE. We will see how this ages.

I go with the consensus view here: if they had Musk hard on harassment, then the 250k payment signals an all time worst lawyer.

The fact that Elon responded to the sexual allegations but did not go into details on the settlement overall may well indicate that the settlement was not specifically addressing the sexual charges but was rather about cut hours / lost wages / etc.

This is all speculation on my part and I am not an attorney, although I do play one on TV…. No not really.

 

[UncaNed]

Global freight index went up 3% on average last week.
Top mover is China/East Asia to North America West Coast which went up 9%, suggesting production is ramping up again out of China.

...or just the shipping backlog is clearing up, so more, faster shipping now...

 

[bigsmooth125]

Think Elon is very chagrined about this SpaceX sexual harassment suit that they settled. Came back to bite him in the ass like nothing was settled and of course he is guilty because they settled.

So his response now: NEVER SETTLE. COUNTERSUE. ATTACK BEST DEFENSE. We will see how this ages.

I go with the consensus view here: if they had Musk hard on harassment, then the 250k payment signals an all time worst lawyer.

The fact that Elon responded to the sexual allegations but did not go into details on the settlement overall may well indicate that the settlement was not specifically addressing the sexual charges but was rather about cut hours / lost wages / etc.

This is all speculation on my part and I am not an attorney, although I do play one on TV…. No not really.

But why would a Tesla-employed lawyer handle a SpaceX legal issue? Doesn't make sense.

 

[traxila]

One final rant, if you want to call it that. It bothers me that people on here are so dismissive of those who express concern or negative sentiments about Tesla or Elon, especially by those who are clearly long-time Tesla supporters. Criticize or challenge other people's reasoning by all means but comments like "sell the stock if you don't like it" or "go buy another car" do not advance any debate.

People who are long time supporters and clearly angry at this point have some points that are irrefutable. For example, why is Musk tweeting some of this stuff and wouldn’t we be better off if he skipped a tweet here or there.

I am not one to claim to know all the details of an attack and why Musk does anything in particular, so I accept the whole package.

I do know that he is in the crosshairs of too many powerful haters to count. So this will keep happening. Especially if Tesla keeps winning. Which BTW, it is.

If the whole package is unacceptable at this point for long time supporters, I don’t know what else to advise them other than there are other stocks out there at this point that are great long term buys right now.

I would rather they stay, but there is such a thing as a deal breaker and if they have reached this point then best of luck to them.

 

[The Accountant]

What he needs is some real form of corporate governance. He does not seem to be able to do so.

Corporate Governance is important but it can be a hindrance if not done properly.
Very small sample size I admit . . .
but what I saw at 3 public companies for which I worked for, Corporate Governance:
- delayed decision making
- reduced appetite for risk-taking.

There was always someone (or several people) along the Corporate Governance approval chain that needed more information, more information, more information before passing it along to the next person (or committee) on the approval chain. And many times they would refuse to approve something because it was too risky (not willing to stake their career on the proposal).

What I like about Tesla is their quick decision making and risk taking even if it gets them in hot water at times.

 

[wipster]

<snip>
The fact that Elon responded to the sexual allegations but did not go into details on the settlement overall may well indicate that the settlement was not specifically addressing the sexual charges but was rather about cut hours / lost wages / etc. <snip>

Man you read my mind! The settlement could very well have been about the hours lost with the sexual allegation just a weapon in their holster. The $250k settlement seems much more like it's for potential lost wages than sexual harassment. Regardless I would be surprised if we ever see the details of it, but this seems like a reasonable assumption to me.

 

[Usain]

Everything weighing on the stock right now will pass. Long term fundamentals remain incredibly strong.

Except for one thing. The Brand. A year ago, Tesla's brand value was right up there with Coke and Apple. Brand value may be slipping and that's the one thing in the current circus that could have a lasting impact.

Elon has talked about the possiblility of doing some "awareness" type advertising. Now might be a good time to start.

 

[bkp_duke]

Lawyer here. I've been trying to resist chiming in this week, particularly regarding the Elon's political tweets which I don't think were a smart idea but on this lawyer-recruiting tweet I feel compelled to give my input. Most corporations will have a legal department that oversees and assists outside lawyers that the corporation retains for specific legal matters. In my experience it's always the outside lawyers who file and direct the lawsuits. This is in part because corporations will retain different lawyers, even ones who work in litigation, who specialize in different areas, e.g,, employment, intellectual property, mass torts, etc. And then you can have different lawyers who specialize in different phases of trial--pretrial, trial, appeals before state courts vs federal vs the US Supreme Court. It's all highly specialized at the big league level in which Tesla plays. Hiring in-house lawyers or retaining outside counsel is typically the job of the general counsel, the corporation's head lawyer, because it's he or she who is knowledgeable about the players in the legal field. It bothers me that Elon would resort to Twitter to recruit lawyers. I don't understand it honestly. He clearly is frustrated for some reason with Perkins and Cooley, two powerhouse law firms, but there are plenty of other major league legal players to choose from.

One final rant, if you want to call it that. It bothers me that people on here are so dismissive of those who express concern or negative sentiments about Tesla or Elon, especially by those who are clearly long-time Tesla supporters. Criticize or challenge other people's reasoning by all means but comments like "sell the stock if you don't like it" or "go buy another car" do not advance any debate.

Thank you for your insight.

I took it slightly different. Elon "recruiting" lawyers via twitter isn't really going to happen. Instead, I think it was a thinly-veiled threat to anyone that has plans to smear him, Telsa, SpaceX, etc. that the gloves are coming off. The gauntlet has been thrown down.

Sure, he may get a few great applicants from the tweet, but I would bet he gets a lot more "junkyard bulldog" firms hitting him up offering to be put on retainer.

EDIT - and anyone considering suing him is going to remember that tweet - don't F with Elon unless you can really bring the goods to win.