Back in the 1980s there was a game called Car Wars that was set 50 years in the future and posited that gasoline was depleted and cars ran on electricity -- and were equipped with flamethrowers, machine guns, and so on. I read about electric, but the information I had at the time said that an EV would be a van with the cargo taken up by the required batteries.
The years go by and the Tesla Roadster made a splash. I and my friends oohed and aah ed over it, but it was a toy for the wealthy. Sure, you could have a quick electric car, but it wasn't practical. I knew that it was to fund the development of another car, but that was all pie-in-the-sky and, more importantly, in the future.
Then I heard about the model 3 on its launch and... wow! That looked good. But no matter how I sliced it, we couldn't buy one. $35k might be the ASP for a car, but the most I'd ever spent on one was ~$8k and usually quite a bit less than that. I ached for it, but still too expensive and unrealistic.
I more or less forgot about Tesla as time continued to slip by. Then Musk made his infamous tweet and it once again entered my consciousness. I started reading up on the company, discovered TMC, and that the Model 3 was in fact being made, though there were serious production issues. It was obvious that 1) this was a company worth supporting and 2) it was lined up to make money once things got sorted out. While I couldn't afford the car, buying stock was something I could do.
At this point I should point out that not only had I never purchased stock, but I was convinced that that stock market is, in effect, rigged against retail investors. But I wanted a piece of this action. I wanted to be able to tell my children that I had invested in Tesla, that I had invested in their future. But the proposed take private was a cloud hanging over this: if it went private I'd be out. Still, getting in and hoping for the best seemed the only thing to do.
So I bought shares for the first time ever. Two months later I threw all caution to the wind and ordered an M3MR. I continued to buy $TSLA whenever I could. My finances are... limited. And they became tighter with making payments for a car. But I still picked up shares as the price did the then-unthinkable and dropped below first $300 (I remember posts here saying that $280 was a bargain, hah!), then $200. As much as I dislike the shorts I could never have bought as many shares as I have if it had not been for their manipulations.
And here we are, some 14 months after my first stock investment, engendered by Musk's stated intention to go private at $420 and the price is holding above that. But instead of being bought out I'm still a share holder and have more shares than I had dared imagine. I'd always reckoned on working until I died, but now there's a light (far down the tunnel still) that maybe I will actually be able to retire. And have something for my kids, too.
Here's to $420, and funding secured!
