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

[TheTalkingMule]

I don't think there's any way Elon wants to live outside California.

 

[mblakele]

If Tesla moved 10,000 jobs to Texas, that would make it a larger auto employer in the state: over 2x GM, over 3x Toyota (2016 data).

https://gov.texas.gov/uploads/files/business/autoindustry-snapshot.pdf

 

[Artful Dodger]

Joe Rogan Experience #1470 - Elon Musk
May 7, 2020
7,510,750 views

Yeah, that's about a million views in the past 4 hrs...

Cheers!

8,217,580 views

Yeah, that's 100K views per hour. Nerd'splain that.

 

[Unpilot]

You bastages sure do post a lot.
Probably has taken 5-6 beers to catch up.

So as I see it the stock will go down a bit on Monday and then close way up for the week.

And this is a mostly dog centered forum.

 

[Navin]

Just keep in mind we are less than two weeks away from battery day

 

[EV forever]

The house, the compensation, the son, the new graduate highly talented employees ...
Ok everything makes senses now. The move of HQ is for sure and not reversible, no matter what Alemeda does now. When Elon tweets, he is done.
You know that he is going to get huge compensation in the coming years, and California has 13% income tax at top tier.
The new grads employees have no money to live in Palo Alto... a regular single family house costs $2M

To me it doesn’t make sense to move Tesla to Texas while keeping SpaceX in CA, so for sure SpaceX will go, too. Where? Near Huston, sounds good?

I need a crying face to respond to this because I agree with you. We Californians are losing both Tesla and SpaceX

 

[Silent Ludicrosy]

At least with the California/Texas drama, more Americans are learning Teslas are built in the USA.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Ok, it is Ok to have FOMO and come back TMC members who bailed

<sermon/rant over>

Your HTML is a little mangled... you turned on 'sermon' mode and turned off the rant.

 

[UnknownSoldier]

I think the cutoff for being "low income" in the Bay Area is around $117k annually.

Yes, I did not typo that. You need to make more than $117,000 a year to not be "low income".

The cost of living in the Bay Area is unsustainable and manufacturing was never the kind of activity that was generating that kind of incomes to begin with. There's a reason why GM/Toyota closed the NUMMI facility in the first place, setting into motion the chain of events that led to newborn Tesla being able to buy that factory for literally a song and get the company started.

 

[UnknownSoldier]

I don't think there's any way Elon wants to live outside California.

Does Elon really "live" anywhere? He spends most of his time on that jet that some attack piece in WSJ or LA Times went after one time traveling to his various companies' locations. I don't think he needs any houses for himself, but his family would probably like to live in one.

 

[Intl Professor]

I mentioned something similar days ago and received a bunch of dislikes....

Nothing personal, just a cat loving crowd.

 

[StealthP3D]

Does anyone here with some kind of legal expertise have any ideas what the lawsuit Elon mentioned could potentially look like?
What arguments could they potentially build a case on, and what is their chance of success? I'm really not familiar with US law so any input would be appreciated.

I suspect the 2010 Supreme Court Case Citizen's United vs. the FEC will play a big role. This ruling essentially granted "personhood" to corporations and therefore many of the same protections granted to individuals by the Constitution also apply to corporations. This is ironic because I despise that 2010 ruling but it could really help Tesla out here.

Tesla has likely already requested the specific health data that supports the need to keep Fremont production closed (before they filed the lawsuit) and will argue that the data is not sufficient to support closing the plant (that closing the plant will not reduce transmission significantly because there was not going to be significant transmission with Tesla's stated safety measures in place) and thus unfairly deprives Tesla of its right to safely conduct business. This kind of heavy regulation needs to be based on more than a hunch or "common sense" or an abundance of caution. The County will try to make the case that the very act of the workers going to work and home each day would significantly increase the transmission of COVID-19.

Tesla will be asking the court to allow production to re-start with specific safety measures in place and it's also likely they will ask for economic compensation from the County for damages for lost production that will be many millions of dollars. I bet they will also ask for something for all the unemployed workers who are likely not being fully compensated by UI. I doubt Tesla will be awarded financial compensation but they will probably ask for it to encourage the County to settle out of court.

 

[MC3OZ]

There are so many GREAT things that could come from Tesla moving production out of CA.

1) Improved tax situation (greatly)
2) Cheaper labor force (CA cost of living is brutal, and Tesla has to shoulder part of that with higher wages).
3) Improved factory design - Giga Shanghai, and soon Giga Germany, have shown that Tesla is learning more and more how to streamline production. More cars, BETTER car assembly, with fewer employees. Tesla could take this as the next iteration, to build a factory how they want for their needs. With Freemont, it was a great deal when they got it, but they are stuck with some legacy layout and design problems on the building that hinder production.
4) Smack in the face to CA politicians that thought they could continue to do anything and the population would be forced to accept it.


Just my 0.02. But as a shareholder, I'm 100% behind Elon if he decides to move out of CA and never look back.

I think they will keep Fremont for at least 5-10 years.

But moving Tesla and SpaceX HQ and R&D to Texas suits Elon, and will save Tesla money in the end.

GF Texas was always going to be bigger than Fremont, now it is guaranteed to be more important than Fremont, CA is going to be left with very little leverage over Tesla in future.

In the meantime Tesla will open Fremont, and battle it out in the courts...

Having major companies like Tesla and SpaceX migrate from the area and battling Tesla in the courts is a disaster for CA and Alameda, it will be a political disaster for any officials seeking election.

So it would be a very brave official who launches additional legal action against Tesla, most likely the politicians want a quick an quiet resolution, they don't want a highly public court case.

So I'll be surprised if Fremont doesn't stay open for the rest of Q2 and if some sensible compromise isn't sorted out. If Tesla and Elon hadn't escalated, nothing would have happened.

 

[UnknownSoldier]

Gov Abbott responds

Greg Abbott on Twitter

TIL Texas Governor Greg Abbott knows how to use the :eyes: emoji

 

[StealthP3D]

The best part about this post is the overwhelming response to disagree with it Immediately - much like the Japanese bees swarming and snuffing out the invasive Murder Hornets - but in this case it is Tesla Bees snuffing out Troll Hornets. Nice work TMC Killer Bees!!!

That's right. The only people that want Musk gone are TSLA short-sellers!

And that tells you a lot about what an effective leader he is.

 

[StealthP3D]

Unvested incentive stock options that have gone 150% or more should do the trick.

Absolutely! With rising share prices, Tesla now has the infamous "golden handcuffs"!

 

[MartinAustin]

I don't agree with this part. From what I've seen, Tesla sales could have been at least double if that law wasn't there.

I like your optimism However... Tesla has a waiting list and is production constrained at its factories. Constantly trying to increase production. It's hard to imagine them supplying double the number of vehicles to Texas just because they were able to do the financial transaction inside the borders of Texas. They're still not really in the "inventory sitting on lots" situation. I'm happy to be wrong about this. If Tesla makes a significant factory-building/relcation effort to Texas, they will certainly sell more vehicles simply due to "state pride"

 

[Beltsbear]

I think the cutoff for being "low income" in the Bay Area is around $117k annually.

Yes, I did not typo that. You need to make more than $117,000 a year to not be "low income".

The cost of living in the Bay Area is unsustainable and manufacturing was never the kind of activity that was generating that kind of incomes to begin with. There's a reason why GM/Toyota closed the NUMMI facility in the first place, setting into motion the chain of events that led to newborn Tesla being able to buy that factory for literally a song and get the company started.

Why would you post something that absurd? Even in San Francisco, that is only true for a family of four. In other words a salary of $60k per the two adults. The factory is not located IN San Francisco. The overall Bay area has a lower income standard, and where the factory is even lower.

 

[StealthP3D]

A sudden 'glass of wine' inspired thought, and argument for re-opening,
Factories should be open LONG before any sort of shops re-open, due to this very simple difference:

With factories, you know the names and addresses of every person in the facility. WIth swipe cards, you are pretty sure exactly where they went. In many cases, employees sign or clock-in, so you have a definitive list of who was where, when, and who they are, and where they live.

With shops, random joes walk in and out all the time, as they see fit, coming from who-knows where, and heading off who knows where...

Which makes for easier contact tracing?

Wow! You should drink more wine. By bottle #3 all the production lines should be running!

 

[Artful Dodger]

Elon Musk Threatens Lawsuit, Relocation of Tesla Headquarters out of California (TSLA)