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

[Fact Checking]

By a molar-percentage, humans are 62% hydrogen (by a mass perspective, only 10%), and by far, most hydrogen in the universe comes from Big Bang nucleosynthesis, not stellar fusion reactions. That doesn't mean that our hydrogen has never been in a star - most of it has surely passed through multiple stars - but little** of it was "born" in a star.

I think "star dust" generally refers to the matter supernovae leave behind, which form the interstellar "dust clouds" and that will be compacted both by other supernova explosions and by gravitational attraction as well - eventually resulting in new stars being formed.

So yes, we are all star dust.

The proper name is "interstellar dust particles" I believe.

 

[Fact Checking]

That is, this means the portion that the FUD campaign has put the price from $360 to $310 (to the extent it has contributed to the undervaluation) does not make any difference to Tesla... just the portion that brought the price from fair value (~$500) to $360, has been disadvantageous to Tesla in regards to these convertibles (again, to the extent the FUD campaign has contributed to the undervaluation).

Again, from a pure shareholder long term value point of view I strongly disagree: for the reasons I outlined I believe Tesla shareholders are better served by Tesla not selling new stock for cash, which a conversion event would have been.

 

[Krugerrand]

Bill Gates shares insights on Tesla and all-electric trucks in MKBHD interview — Teslarati

Bill Gates: “There will be a lot of great electric cars to choose from”

Sad when Bill has such a simplistic point of view on Tesla and EVs.

Companies just don’t start making “a lot fo great electric cars”

There is battery cost.

There is tech with over the air updates.

There is a network of superchargers and cars that know about when to go to them.

There is fun, like Easter eggs.

There is no dealers, to skim money from the deal.

There is investing smartly so you can do all this, profitably.

There is the mind set of saying “Let’s do this” and then making it happen.


Ford, GM, VW, Toyota, BMW, Mercedes are all very very far away from making things work.

Tesla has done it.


Yes, there will be a lot of great electric cars to choose from.

And they will all be from Tesla, for quite some time.

That’s what happens when people open their mouths and don’t have a clue what they are talking about. So afraid to say, ‘I don’t know.’ They all want to look the expert on everything. People suck.

 

[Unpilot]

Love Carl Sagan!

 

[SteveG3]

Again, from a pure shareholder long term value point of view I strongly disagree: for the reasons I outlined I believe Tesla shareholders are better served by Tesla not selling new stock for cash, which a conversion event would have been.

to the extent the shares are valued from $360 and below, agree. to the extent that without a FUD campaign shares would have been priced above $360 agree to disagree, money was already spent betting that this would be the outcome. IIRC, Elon said a couple of earnings calls back that Tesla wanted to use stock for half of the repayment.

 

[Curt Renz]

Adam Jonas on CNBC soon. CNBC citing Tesla sales sliding (think they said "on the skids") due to competition. I think that kind of sounds familiar, like, I may have heard that somewhere before. Probably wrong about that though...

EDIT: fixed auto-correct error.

Where is all this alleged competition? As of right now, I do not believe that I can buy an all electric vehicle that is a competitor to the X, S, or 3. This competition argument, until something is really available, seems a bit disingenuous. And, I hope there is real competition at some point. All those scrambling to catch Tesla is a positive in my view - Elon has proved that electric cars are viable, desirable, and are here to stay. There is a huge auto market where many can be successful in the electric vehicle space - the key is to keep taking share from ICE manufacturers.

Also, the demand argument also seems fairly disingenuous. Based on what I have been seeing here and elsewhere,Tesla is selling as many 3s as it can get shipped to Europe and China. In the States, at least where I live, I still see new 3s all the time (and have many friends who will likely be buying one in the coming months).

Indeed these competition warnings that have been ongoing for years are ludicrous. Years ago Elon said he wants all automakers to eventually become purely electric. He even open-sourced the patents. Not only does he believe that EVs would be best for the world, but also that EVs becoming ubiquitous is the key to Tesla's long-term success.

Domination of the current EV market with an 80% share is nice, but just 5% of the total vehicle market would be even more fabulous when EVs become the norm. In the larger sense it's not percentage share that is important; it's the actual number of cars delivered.

 

[K_Dizzle]

Sagan smoked ALOT of pot

 

[Fact Checking]

That’s what happens when people open their mouths and don’t have a clue what they are talking about. So afraid to say, ‘I don’t know.’ They all want to look the expert on everything. People suck.

Yeah, intellectual capacity and long term vision were never strong traits of Bill Gates:

"I see little commercial potential for the internet for the next 10 years," Gates allegedly said at one Comdex trade event in 1994, as quoted in the 2005 book "Kommunikation erstatter transport."​

Being the son of an IBM insider at the right time when a lucrative long term software contract was awarded, and being a ruthless businessman not shy to sabotage competitors were his two main claims to (in)fame. The rest was the inertia of a monopoly supplier in the hyper-growth high-tech PC sector generating more wealth.

So I'm not sure why anyone would want to listen to Bill Gates's opinion about EVs, other than to reinforce the above impression.

 

[Joe F]

Well.....

By a molar-percentage, humans are 62% hydrogen (by a mass perspective, only 10%)

Silly girl: Some of us are made up of pizza and beer, and the occasional aged NYstrip steak.

Okay, maybe a little too much pizza and beer!

 

[Steve m]

Just google “amazon pee in bottles” to see how that 15% discount is achieved & you got your etron in 3 days.

Sorry Williams and Sonoma had the better price.

 

[Unpilot]

Silly girl: Some of us are made up of pizza and beer, and the occasional aged NYstrip steak.

Okay, maybe a little too much pizza and beer!

But all that came from elsewhere....like stars...and other space stuff.

 

[SteveG3]

That’s what happens when people open their mouths and don’t have a clue what they are talking about. So afraid to say, ‘I don’t know.’ They all want to look the expert on everything. People suck.

(paraphrasing off memory, but I think nearly the exact words, in response to some very 'sucky' global scale human behavioral events brought up to him in an interview)

we're a young species

- Carl Sagan

 

[wipster]

I think "star dust" generally refers to the matter supernovae leave behind, which form the interstellar "dust clouds" and that will be compacted both by other supernova explosions and by gravitational attraction as well - eventually resulting in new stars being formed.

So yes, we are all star dust.

The proper name is "interstellar dust particles" I believe.

I always thought it was "star stuff"...

Maybe that was just the stuff in my ears...

 

[Fact Checking]

to the extent that without a FUD campaign shares would have been priced above $360 agree to disagree, money was already spent betting that this would be the outcome.

Again, that's wrong: suppose the conversion price would have been $390. The hedges would only have paid the $30 portion beyond $360, i.e. 92% of the straight dilution from 2.5 million new shares would still have occurred, even if we ignore compound dilution.

Paying 100% of the $920m convertibles in cash is significantly anti-dilutive.

BTW., I begin to share @neroden's thesis that existing institutional investors probably helped maintain the $360 price barrier: they certainly didn't want 2.5 million new shares on the market, so in Q4 and earlier this year they kept unloading excess shares they picked up in the $250-$300 price range.

 

[Krugerrand]

I don’t know who “tesla_truth” is, but it sure isn’t the deceased Steve Jobs. If people in the Tesla community are not cool with some Twitter account going by the name of “Tesla PR” I’m not sure why they’re cool with some account calling itself “tesla_truth” but falsely using the name and photo of Steve Jobs.

Simple. There’s no reason to object to positive, correct tweeting. A lot to object about evil, vile, lying, misrepresentation et al tweeting.

 

[MTL_HABS1909]

Haha, no he's serious, but not to be taken seriously.

He sold his entire stake in TSLA near $280 after the SEC lawsuit announcement, then bought back a few days later at $320. Calls himself a "value investor".

Cheers!

You have this all wrong. He actually sold at around $360 after the go private tweet and bought back in the $280s. He was a lot smarter than a lot of people on this board, including me....

 

[Unpilot]

You have this all wrong. He actually sold at around $360 after the go private tweet and bought back in the $280s. He was a lot smarter than a lot of people on this board, including me....

Or lucky.

 

[K_Dizzle]

Or lucky.

I’ll take luck over smarts any day of the week

 

[Krugerrand]

YTD, 694 pages on this thread and SP is basically the same ...

Good thing we had other things to talk about.

 

[SteveG3]

Again, that's wrong: suppose the conversion price would have been $390. The hedges would only have paid the $30 portion beyond $360, i.e. 92% of the straight dilution from 2.5 million new shares would still have occurred, even if we ignore compound dilution.

Paying 100% of the $920m convertibles in cash is significantly anti-dilutive.

Again agree to disagree. I don't really think it's worth looking up, but, my recollection, with a fairly high level of confidence, is that Elon said a couple of earnings calls back that Tesla's preference was to pay back half in cash and half in shares. There is, of course, always a tradeoff between increasing share count and raising cash, but, Elon's statement makes it apparent that Tesla would have liked to have gone for that tradeoff for half of the debt if the share price was high enough (and, again, money had already been spent by Tesla that would have made this option more and more attractive as the price got further and further above $360, up to $500+).