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

[Fact Checking]

"California" identifies the Time Zone for the "Thursday 2pm" in his preceding tweet.

That's certainly one aspect of it, but not the only plausible context. Elon is usually exceedingly precise in his written communications.

 

[Causalien]

You have a great "TV personality"



I assume this depends on the details of the options. E.g. if one had some $450 calls and a buyout was announced for $420, then it's guaranteed (assuming the buyout occurs) that your calls will never be ITM, and thus their only residual value would be a bet on the buyout failing. And even if your calls were $410, the buyout would be capping the upside at only $10. Is this sort of thing that you're referring to?

On the other hand, if one had some 17 May $370 and a buyout was announced at $450 for 1 May, then that'd surely be a large boost to them, as (assuming the buyout occurs) it'd lock in a $80 upside - right?

Just want to make sure that there's not something I'm missing here.

Ya basically. And also the residual possibility that the deal gets revised up. Most take private deal price gets revised up once. So, I'd add at least 10% more to any announced price.

 

[Fact Checking]

I assume this depends on the details of the options. E.g. if one had some $450 calls and a buyout was announced for $420, then it's guaranteed (assuming the buyout occurs) that your calls will never be ITM, and thus their only residual value would be a bet on the buyout failing. And even if your calls were $410, the buyout would be capping the upside at only $10. Is this sort of thing that you're referring to?

IIRC @neroden or @ggr amentioned the theoretical possibility in the $420 days that if a buyout is executed with a certain legal construct it's possible for even in the money options to become worthless if the buyout becomes effective retroactively. Unlike shares options are not contracts with Tesla, but with market makers, and I don't think Tesla has a particular obligation to treat options holders as shareholders.

I don't remember the exact details of the argument ...

There's also the possibility for the buyout price to go up, or, in some rare cases, go down, even retroactively, after a court fight. I'm not sure what exact effect this has on options.

 

[Ovulation]

Solar may not be the only solution, as (in my region) we’d need 10 times the capacity in the winter versus summer. I used to be pro (uranium and plutionium) nuclear, but since Fukushima I agree that the risks are too great (mind you, I live only 2K km from Tsjernobyl, but you could say ‘that were the Russians’). Besides, plutonium and uranium are not a long term solution as we’d run out in a couple of hundred years. But thorium based nuclear seems to be safe with virtually limitless supply.

The bigger the stuff the harder to innovate, I am all for nuclear, but I don't see that someone is willing to put all that R&D money into a technology that the ignorant public dislikes, the state probably should, but those big bureaucracies aren't very good at developing new technology short of a major war, than you get limitless resources and talent like Bethe or Rabi who normally wouldn't work on weapons

 

[Artful Dodger]

That's certainly one aspect of it, but not the only plausible context. Elon is usually exceedingly precise in his written communications.

Those 2 tweets were 4 min apart.

The 3rd one was a reply in the same tread 1:37 hrs later "Some Tesla news".

Sheesh, there's enough stretching going on in this thread to give a hernia to a yoga instructor.

 

[Antares Nebula]

What is people's opinion on Q1 prod and delivery estimates? I can't square Elon's warning email about lower or no profit and implied demand issues with recent data (see below). Seems this quarter should be phenomenal. From below data, I'd say about 80k prod and 70k delivery (somewhat conservatively and Model 3 only), with more high margin AWDs then any prior quarter. Was Elon sandbagging and/or shifting strategies (perhaps via Larry Ellison's suggestion) to under promising and over delivering? Or is Tesla, for whatever reason, registering way more VINS this quarter than needed?

Bloomberg tracker now at ~5800/week moving average
Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

Over 100,000 Model 3 VINs registered this quarter so far vs 75,000 in all of Q4, and over one month still left in the quarter. And more AWDs registered than any prior quarter. (Higher international VINs more than making up for lower US VINs.)
Model 3 VINs

Tesla Delivered More Vehicles in January than Reports Suggest
"We think that 30k+ US deliveries for Q1 is a reasonable prediction given what we’ve seen so far… We believe this indicates strong ongoing demand and new order generation for Tesla, even after the expiry of the full EV tax credit."

 

[Mobius484]

Finally off work.
The tusk memes/speculation over the Tesla news, and the SP action lately has been nutty. Whatever it is it’s great advertising!

The snake charger! I’m still hoping for the V3 update or the SR 3. Think of the updates possible for V3.
-higher/more efficient charge rate/time
-megapack connectivity
-solar canopies
-integration into local grids
-snake charger for autonomous network
-starlink ground antennas

The infrastructure is pretty close to being there already, although of now that over model 3 hump can start building out these other areas with more force. Love to see Double down on Tesla’s great competitive advantage of the charging infrastructure....

 

[KarenRei]

IIRC @neroden or @ggr amentioned the theoretical possibility in the $420 days that if a buyout is executed with a certain legal construct it's possible for even in the money options to become worthless if the buyout becomes effective retroactively. Unlike shares options are not contracts with Tesla, but with market makers, and I don't think Tesla has a particular obligation to treat options holders as shareholders.

My understanding is that options contracts have provisions built in for buyouts. But again, this is not my field, hence the reason I'm wanting to make sure that my understanding is correct

 

[Mobius484]

As soon as Tesla stared making a profit, which was around when Ellison was brought on I think, he seemed to change his tone on bold predictions. Under promise and maybe this is the over deliver. The alien dreadnaught is upon us.....

 

[KarenRei]

"Baird Names Tesla as Fresh Pick; Says Model 3 Demand Concerns Overblown; Expects Tesla Shares to Trade Higher Into Q1 Delivery Release"

 

[shlokavica22]

"California" identifies the Time Zone for the "Thursday 2pm" in his preceding tweet.

He would have said Pacific in my opinion. California is meant to specify both timezone and place.

One more thing to remember: "Peace was never an option".

 

[Artful Dodger]

He would have said Pacific in my opinion. California is meant to specify both timezone and place.

One more thing to remember: "Peace was never an option".

Yeah right, and leave "2PM" hanging unspecified. SMH. Sometimes it really is that simple.

 

[shlokavica22]

Yeah right, and leave "2PM" hanging unspecified. SMH. Sometimes it really is that simple.

He is master in creating attention (it's not a coincidence TSLA doesn't pay for adds). If he wrote in one tweet all the info, the buzz would've been less.

 

[WarpedOne]

Nah, nuclear reactors are no more dangerous than a waffle:

Spoiler: waffle analogy

Let's suppose a random waffle weighs some 100g, according to Einstein that is about 9.000.000 GJ of energy.
A gallon of gasoline contains mere 132 MJ, therefore that one waffle can do similar damage as 68 millions of gallons of gasoline. A supertanker can ship over 80 millions gallons of oil, some half of it ends up being distilled to gasoline.

So... a random waffle can do similar damage as an oil tanker blowing up ... handle with great care!

 

[Mars ☰mperor]

That's certainly one aspect of it, but not the only plausible context. Elon is usually exceedingly precise in his written communications.

Well, this makes me think what else famously come from California.
Designed by Apple in California.
Could Doug Field be a contributing factor to the collaboration between Tesla and ?
I doubt Elon will sell or go private. But external funding from Apple or collaboration is definitely a huge win win.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Pre-market 316.00 +1.26 (0.40%)

 

[Fact Checking]

Since LEMUR was basically an (imperfect) acronym of "LE MidRange", there's a chance that TUSK is going to be an acronym as well. (Would be pretty ironic, given that Elon hates acronyms.)

The official TUSK acronyms are:

TUSK

TUSK Tank Urban Survivability Kit (US Army)
TUSK Tufts University Sciences Knowledgebase (online health and medical database)​

Tesla announcing electrified stealth tank production would sure catapult the stock price, but I consider it rather unlikely at this stage. (It's a nice business idea to keep in mind nevertheless.)

But in LEMUR acronym the 'U' was 'silent', so let's remove the 'U' fro TUSK as well, and see TSK acronyms:

TSK

TSK Task
TSK Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
TSK Tasking
TSK Temporary Session Key
TSK Tsukishima Kikai Co., Ltd. (Japan)
TSK The Sleuth Kit (UNIX)
TSK The Silent Killer (gaming clan)
TSK Tesked (Swedish: teaspoon)
TSK Tall Skinny Kiwi
TSK The Subtle Knife (Phillip Pullman book)
TSK Skin Temperature
TSK Turk Silahli Kuvvetleri (Turkish Armed Forces)
TSK Takagi-Sugeno-Kang (fuzzy network model)
TSK Tekniikan Sanastokeskus (Finland)
TSK Tampa Scale for Kinesiophobia
TSK Typgeprüfte Schaltgerätekombinationen (Type-Tested Switchgear Assembly)
TSK Time Stranger Kyoko (anime)
TSK Telcordia Standards Knowledgebase
TSK Transmission Security Key
TSK Tang Shiu Kin (school)
TSK Time Space Knowledge (inquiry method)
TSK Three-Second Kiss (band)
TSK The Screaming Kidneys (band)
TSK Team Silent Kill (Airsoft team)
TSK Touristik-Service-Kühlungsborn (German)
TSK Tokyo Senpaku Kaisha, Ltd
TSK Top Secret Kid (gaming)
TSK The Softkiller Crew
TSK Thou Shalt Kill (record label)
TSK The Serial Keeper
TSK Takarazuka Sakudokan K.K (now Hi-Lex Corporation; Japan)
TSK Table Space Kitchen (real estate)
TSK Truk-Soft Köln (German)
TSK Team Swiss Kart (gaming)
TSK Tallinna Sikupilli Keskkool
TSK Tiger Shulmann's Karate
TSK Trade Services Contract
TSK Technical Society of Knoxville
TSK Telekommunikation Service Kaya
TSK Towarzystwo Szkolne Kociszew (Polish)
TSK Transport Service Külbleck
TSK The Suicide Crew (gaming)
TSK Tongue Smart Kids
TSK Total Street Knowledge (clothing company; Cleveland, OH)
TSK Technické služby mesta Karviné
TSK Twiztid Serial Killa (Insane Clown Posse)
TSK The Sound Key (band)
​

Oh my, possibilities abound! As much as I'd like to see Tesla make a 'Team Swiss Kart', or Tesla release a 'Three Second Kiss' video showing his wedding with Grimes, let's filter out the ... less likely solutions, which gives us:

TSK Task
TSK Time Stranger Kyoko (anime)
TSK The Sleuth Kit (UNIX)
​

'Task' is rather boring.
'Time Stranger Kyoko' is a story about telepathy, which I might buy in the context of a Neuralink announcement, but probably not in the "Some Tesla news" context.
'The Sleuth Kit' is a forensics tool (or a spying tool, depending on which side of the indictment you are on), and while I'd like to see a stealth Tesla, it's probably not very practical as Teslas are pretty damn silent already.

So I'm afraid that while this was an amusing excursion into the world of known acronyms, but it appears to be an ultimate dead end. Tsk tsk ...

New acronyms are still possible though:

Tesla UK Sales (the order of the letters is wrong, but that's normal in the UK where traffic is in the wrong side of the road already)​

Pretty exciting news for our lunatic wrong-hand-side driving friends (some of our down under friends are even doing it while upside down, which is like totally crazy), but probably not that interesting to 95% of Tesla fans who are driving on the correct side of the road.

Having exhausted the most obvious angles of the acronym, how about the literal meaning of 'tusk':

1. An elongated pointed tooth, usually one of a pair, extending outside of the mouth in certain animals such as the walrus, elephant, or wild boar.
2. A long projecting tooth or toothlike part.​

Let's assume that Elon is his usual stealthy self and the very visible animal tusk references he made are just misdirection. The real meaning would be the second one: "a toothlike part" of a vehicle.

So my hypothesis based on linguistic analysis: Hawthorne demo of Teslas convoying at high speed in the test tunnel, keeping very tight distance with a 'tusk' tool that is extended automatically as they enter the tunnel. This allows very high speed yet safe transport: the 'tusk' would be strong enough to carry the force of even a collision or most other types of malfunction.

They would be the Tesla equivalents of train couplers:

If that's what the demo is going to be about today then you heard it here first.

A cool demo, but a bit of a letdown in terms of stock price impact though, and primarily Boring Company related, not a core Tesla competency.

Still totally not advice.

 

[Artful Dodger]

BREAKING NEWS, EVERYONE!!!

View attachment 381083



ED: $920B, Chuck?

I voted 'Funny' because 7 people liked that Tweet.

 

[Fact Checking]

One more thing to remember: "Peace was never an option".

Oh, this makes the "Tank Urban Survival Kit" a real option I guess: Tesla announcing electrified stealth tank production?

 

[LST]

I can't wrap my head around how clueless you guys all are when it comes to todays announcement. It's so obvious what the twitter message is. Elon will announce that he will nuke mars to start and accelerate the terraforming process,
Proof: latest pic, Revive Mars.

..aarggh i forgot, it's supposed to be Tesla related...

will try again later