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

[CorneliusXX]

They should really put the new cells in the Roadster First.

It will be a selling point. A "Pure" Tesla.

Then Model S and X.

Then everything.

Makes sense. Low production first, then shrinking the supply chain from Japan.

By then any kinks should be worked out.

 

[ReflexFunds]

Tesla is starting to ditch Salesforce and replace it with its own software for company salespeople

Tesla is replacing Salesforce with an in-house Tesla Operating System. Sounds like a positive step to me, hopefully they are working towards improved customer communication.

Tesla is set to abandon Salesforce for a proprietary customer-relationship-management (CRM) system, three Tesla salespeople told Business Insider.
The electric-car maker has already begun using the new system, but the move away from Salesforce is not yet finished, the salespeople said. Two of the salespeople said they expected the transition to be completed in the near future.
...
Tesla's salespeople have used Salesforce to record information about their interactions with customers and potential customers, as well as information about customer orders.
...
the three Tesla salespeople expressed excitement about Tesla's new CRM system, with one calling it "pretty slick." Another said that while it could use refinement, he expected that it would eventually be "less cumbersome" than Salesforce.

 

[Fact Checking]

Tesla is starting to ditch Salesforce and replace it with its own software for company salespeople

Tesla is replacing Salesforce with an in-house Tesla Operating System. Sounds like a positive step to me, hopefully they are working towards improved customer communication.

Definitive proof that Tesla execs are reading TMC:

When I ordered a couple years ago I noticed they were using Salesforce for their CRM. Many consider Salesforce the market leader...but having worked on Salesforce instances the past 11 years there are many ways to do it wrong. I wouldn't know what the situation is with Tesla's instance but I have overheard employees complaining about it so I'd imagine there's plenty room for improvement.

 

[Fact Checking]

Macro index futures jumped overnight, due to:

China says have agreed with U.S. to cancel tariffs in different phases

"BEIJING (Reuters) - China and the United States have agreed in the past two weeks to cancel tariffs imposed during their months-long trade war in different phases, the Chinese commerce ministry said on Thursday."​

I believe the 'phased' approach might have been worked out at the insistence of China, who would be correct to not trust Trump's words and reliability in executing a tariff stand-down ...

A source previously told Reuters that Chinese negotiators wanted the United States to drop 15% tariffs on about $125 billion worth of Chinese goods that went into effect on Sept. 1.

They are also seeking relief from earlier 25% tariffs on about $250 billion of imports from machinery and semiconductors to furniture.

A person familiar with China’s negotiating position said it was pressing Washington to “remove all tariffs as soon as possible”.

A deal may be signed this month by U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at a yet-to-be determined location.

Dozens of venues have been suggested for a meeting, which had originally been scheduled to take place on the sidelines of a now-cancelled mid-November summit of Asia-Pacific leaders in Chile, a senior official of the Trump administration told Reuters on Wednesday.

One possible location was London, where the two leaders could meet after a NATO summit that Trump is due to attend from Dec. 3-4, the official said.

Gao declined to say when and where such a meeting could be.​

Translation: the Chinese delegation politely but firmly refused repeated offers by the U.S. delegation to hold the meeting at the Trump Mar-a-Lago Club.

 

[Oveeus]

As a Tesla investor, I'm really eager to see what "wow" factor Elon has for us.

And really, come to think of it... Elon is not doing his businesses by making one independent to each other. Rather, all these companies (Tesla, SpaceX, Boring... etc) are all puzzle pieces of the larger picture.

We all know Boring had Tesla cars at literally the center of thing.

What if... SpaceX's starlink is about providing global network access to the future millions of Teslas on the road. I mean... it doesn't sound all that far off. Tesla is currently footing the bill to all the data connections, and I can't imagine them to be cheap even at fleet level. And it's a cost that's likely to increase as more Teslas are on road. And if Tesla bill its owner for it as part of an enhanced service, Starlink can be profitable from day1 it goes public.

 

[Fact Checking]

What if... SpaceX's starlink is about providing global network access to the future millions of Teslas on the road. I mean... it doesn't sound all that far off.

Unlikely: the Starlink receiver is too large to be put into passenger cars, plus a lot of Teslas are in urban areas, where there's only a limited number of Starlink frequencies. Then there's also the problem of cross-border regulation. Ground receivers are often licensed with country specific quirks (frequencies they can use, etc.).

The Tesla Semi - maybe.

The much more natural approach for Starlink world domination is for SpaceX to offer Starlink based GSM macro cells to telecom operators, and to perhaps roll out their own mobile phone service eventually, in all countries where they can gain the frequency allocations. The natural connectivity interface for Tesla's is GSM after all.

 

[avoigt]

Tesla is starting to ditch Salesforce and replace it with its own software for company salespeople

Tesla is replacing Salesforce with an in-house Tesla Operating System. Sounds like a positive step to me, hopefully they are working towards improved customer communication.

Another example of how vertically integrated Tesla really is. Worked my working life with Sales Force and it has its limitation.

For Tesla as a Software Company, thats how I see them, its a logic step if you intend to create better customer communication, management and relationship.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Macro index futures jumped overnight

And TSLA jumped with it: (Beta=1.0)

Nasdaq 100 Futures - Dec 19
Real-time derived
8,249.50 +42.25 +0.51%
04:35 AM EST

Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) Pre-Market Trading
Pre-market 328.20 +1.62 +0.50%
04:26 AM EST

 

[Antares Nebula]

Ironically it is the FUD that completely protects Tesla from a buyout from someone like Apple.

Many if not most Tesla investors understand that Tesla is the company best positioned for the future in the world right now and will hold out for a very significant takeover premium, probably well over 100%.

The FUD means that Apple could never persuade its investors to pay a large premium for a company that they have all been incessantly told is doomed to failure or at least limited long term market share and profit.

This is likely true. Certainly Buffett, a major Apple stakeholder, would raise an eyebrow. He was actually asked about this in a CNBC interview this year, and he said, while it's not his decision, he considers it a bad idea, primarily because autos are a capital intensive business. Both Cook and Buffett appear too conservative to take such a risk. So, as much as there is plenty of reason to suspect that Apple may wish to buy Tesla, there is also plenty of reason to suspect it may not.

 

[RobStark]

I believe the 'phased' approach might have been worked out at the insistence of China, who would be correct to not trust Trump's words and reliability in executing a tariff stand-down ...

​

I believe the US would insist on the phased approach because the Chinese Fascist(because lets face it they have not been Communist in decades) have never been trustworthy.​

 

[Antares Nebula]

Well I let the China factory thing get to my head and I sold my calls which are of course up significantly today. Damn you Mercury Retrograde!

Strong share position still intact.

C'mon SpaceCash, you're the uberest of the uberbulls here. You know it's going much higher. Buy those calls back at the open tomorrow. Show us the way!

 

[Fact Checking]

And TSLA jumped with it: (Beta=1.0)

Nasdaq 100 Futures - Dec 19
Real-time derived
8,249.50 +42.25 +0.51%
04:35 AM EST

Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) Pre-Market Trading
Pre-market 328.20 +1.62 +0.50%
04:26 AM EST

BTW., TSLA often reacts to China trade news with a higher than 1.0 beta - so this might not be the whole price reaction. Also, futures are up ~0.7%.

So this combined with the S&P upgrade might result in a green day for TSLA, unless some negative news nullifies it.

 

[Fact Checking]

I believe the US would insist on the phased approach because the Chinese Fascist(because lets face it they have not been Communist in decades) have never been trustworthy.

That explanation is not consistent with the historic track record of Trump already having announced a glorious China Deal a few weeks ago (the greatest China Deal since the Big Bang) - only for this news to be walked back by the Chinese, who are apparently less trusting before they'd be willing to lift the soybean tariffs.

Anyway, to the TSLA price action it probably doesn't matter much whether the Chinese have the Republicans by the nuts soybeans or the other way around.

 

[HG Wells]

Can we stop with all the nonsense about Apple possibly acquiring Tesla.

Well, in a few years.
Tesla buy Apple ?

 

[Artful Dodger]

BTW., TSLA often reacts to China trade news with a higher than 1.0 beta - so this might not be the whole price reaction. Also, futures are up ~0.7%.

So this combined with the S&P upgrade might result in a green day for TSLA, unless some negative news nullifies it.

Indeed:

Closed: Nov. 7, 05:30 AM EST
Pre-market 332.60 +5.88 (1.80%)​

EDIT: Feeling a tad squeezie out this a.m.

ca·pit·u·late
/kəˈpiCHəˌlāt/

verb: capitulate; 3rd person present: capitulates; past tense: capitulated; past participle: capitulated; gerund or present participle: capitulating
cease to resist an opponent or an unwelcome demand; surrender.
"the shorts had to capitulate to superior forces"​

 

[Antares Nebula]

I think the importance of ambition and vision is highlighted in Tesla and Apple. With Musk and Jobs at the helm both companies were innovative and focused on the product. Once Jobs left, Apple has decayed into a marketing machine. Jobs said it best here how a company decays when product is not forefront.

Of course Apple is still a relatively great company, but the trajectory is very slowly downwards. It's a source of concern for Tesla that Elon is so critical to the vision and direction. He is unique in that he is an ambitious risk taker, an engineer and a visionary. Having said that, I think the vision of Tesla (speed up sustainable energy and transport), and SpaceX (base on Mars/other bodies after) are quite clearly set and will not change for a few decades, so perhaps Elon's importance over time will diminish with such clear goals set for the companies. Apple's objective of build easy to use and beautiful software and hardware is less ambitious and open to wavering imo.... it has less direction, less clarity in the objective. Apple now seems to be about maximising revenue.

The vision of Tesla and SpaceX goals are what people rally behind. The incremental progress out in the open. The setbacks and small steps forward. It's an iterative approach, building on top of previous versions of the car and software. A loop between drivers, engineers, production, designers, pushes the process forwards. Scale matters in the car industry. A lot of the problems are related to efficiencies, production scaling, data collection. It is this public, at scale iteration over decades which has driven both Tesla and SpaceX to achieve revolutions in their products, totally disrupting several industries. All the while pulling in money from active customers, and getting their feedback on the products.

Apple (Titan), Amazon (Blue Origin) and Google (Waymo) all come along with the approach of trying to spend their way to a solution, behind closed doors and without iteration at scale, putting them very much at a major disadvantage. Not to mention how much later they started on the problems compared to Tesla and SpaceX.

_____________

My predictions for these three companies:

Apple/Titan - they will not make cars, but maybe will make a version of FSD they can sell to automakers if Waymo does not beat them to it.

Blue Origin - they move way too slowly to compete with SpaceX - they might be able to just copy Starship once they get New Glenn flying. They will be 5-10 years behind SpaceX though which seems too far.

Waymo - I think they will succeed 2-3 years after Tesla.

Good observation. Apple with and without Steve Jobs is like Tesla with and without Elon Musk. Look what happened after Jobs was booted out of Apple in the 80s. Before he was finally brought back (as part of the Next purchase), Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy. They were licensing clones, the Newton was fading, etc. Will it repeat again now? Hard to say. Apple today is very much a market leader and among the most valuable companies in the world -- much different than in the 80s.

Would be interesting to see what Apple would have done re Tesla and cars had Jobs been alive today. Would he become a fierce competitor or try to acquire them? Two brilliant visionaries going head to head. What a sight to have behold!

 

[SpaceCash]

Premarket bullish AF

 

[Artful Dodger]

Premarket bullish AF

Yeah, even if the only tariff to come off of Tesla is the $200 tax on the FSD computer, then that's ~$20M off of COGS in Q4...

 

[Fact Checking]

Indeed:

Closed: Nov. 7, 05:30 AM EST
Pre-market 332.60 +5.88 (1.80%)​

EDIT: Feeling a tad squeezie out this a.m.

ca·pit·u·late
/kəˈpiCHəˌlāt/

verb: capitulate; 3rd person present: capitulates; past tense: capitulated; past participle: capitulated; gerund or present participle: capitulating
cease to resist an opponent or an unwelcome demand; surrender.
"the shorts had to capitulate to superior forces"​

One word of caution: pre-market trading volume is only 11k TSLA shares so far - so this is light trading that might be reversed during the regular trading session.

Having said that, TSLA is now +85% higher than it was in the summer at the $179-ish low. That's an incredible run-up over just 5 months from such a high market cap company, and I'm wondering how many of the shorts that shorted below $200 are still short today, and at what price levels they are going to start hurting. Very few shorts who shorted this year are still in profitable positions.

I'm also wondering to what extent NASDAQ options market makers are trying to hit max-pain levels and attempt to walk back the TSLA price, or are most of them flowing with the delta and buying the underlying stock meanwhile?

Ihor is on vacation (and his tracking wasn't very accurate for Tesla lately) - and the NASDAQ October 31 TSLA short interest report will be released on November 11: next Monday.

Until then we'll probably be in the dark about how TSLA short interest evolved after the Q3 earnings report.

 

[chr147]

I’m guessing today is going to be a good day based on the pre-market?