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

[jhm]

Tesla itself, (bulls vs. TSLAQ) and many of Tesla decisions/designs have often been polarizing. In fact more often than not, I found large camps of people either loving or hating a specific Tesla decision/design/change. X doors, FSD/robotaxi, CyberTruck, new S wheel, no-stalks, etc, etc...

I've been effectively desensitized to polarizing Tesla actions. But the BTC purchase, has taken me off guard. The polarization seems order of magnitude bigger than what I'm now accustomed to with regard to anything Tesla. Quite amazing, honestly...

I'm still struggling to figure out how I feel. It's either nothing-burger, and will soon be forgotten, or it's so fundamental/game changing that we can't even comprehend the end game. Which one, it is, is probably a [b/tr]illion dollar question.

Elon likes to move the Overton window.

 

[Queeg500]

Rough maths.
If BTC falls to zero, Tesla will lose 0.2% of their market cap.
We’re up 0.78% today
So whatever we think about Bitcoin, we can’t lose.
Unless you sell shares.

 

[Creekstalker]

The Tesla cars you own are your PoS validators.

Absolutely.

I long ago suspected my non-Tesla was a PoS and all it took was sitting in a Tesla to validate my theory.

 

[EVortex]

Through all of the nay-saying, FUD, second guessing, and ignorance (including my own in some instances) - I trust Elon. It's not just blind faith. I have done quite well through his decisions and actions.

 

[MC3OZ]

Elon's brilliance and fearlessness has always been tinged with a bit of what appears to be craziness as well as unpredictability. In the long run, many of his actions and goals which initially seemed to be based on foolish optimism actually turn out to be visionary. Electric cars, reusable rockets, direct-to-consumer car sales, all seemed absurd previously. Still not sure about the neuralink thing, but he'll probably prove me wrong there.

I personally am doubtful that Bitcoin is all that it is cracked up to be, and always thought it felt more like a pump-and-dump scheme, but there is a critical element of herd acceptance involved with currency and this move by Elon has helped lay very solid foundation to the legitimacy of bitcoin as an accepted store of value. He understands the tremendous degree of leverage and influence that he holds and is using it to shape the future of bitcoin and crypto.

Tasha Keeney also pointed out that it could help Tesla with managing their foreign currency from international sales, so it will be interesting to see how they take advantage of this.

After engaging with those who are more bullish on Bitcoin here, I have learned 2 valuable things:-

1. Bitcoin can't be quickly disrupted, smart people will spot any possible disruption years in advance.
2. Bitcoin investors have very strong conviction.

So short term the risk to valuation is less than the rapid rise in value, and the opaque nature of the valuation, would suggest.

My hope is Tesla simply reports around $1,5 Billion in BTC every 10Q, then it isn't a speculative bet, more a trading hedge.

So Tesla might be using BTC as a kind of buy low, sell high hedge, a bit like how ARK tends to trade Tesla.
If the holdings remain around $1.5 Billion, Elon can't be accused of pump and dump.

Regardless, I think we should adjourn the Cryptocurrency thread, in the grand scheme of things, this is just one line in one chapter of the Tesla story.

 

[Knightshade]

Rough maths.
If BTC falls to zero, Tesla will lose 0.2% of their market cap.
We’re up 0.78% today
So whatever we think about Bitcoin, we can’t lose.
Unless you sell shares.

Teslas market cap is 800+ billion.

But market cap is the wrong value here.


Teslas cash and liquid assets which they'd have used for this purchase were just under 20 billion..... so this is about 8% of their "cash on hand"

Bitcoins not going to 0 or anything, so it's pretty academic... but if Tesla suddenly announced they'd lost 1.5 billion in cash equivalent I suspect the share price would drop somewhat quite a bit more than 0.2%


Which of course would be a great buying opportunity

 

[Singuy]

So according to this guy and the verbiage of what BTC is considered as, it can be written as a loss on the income statement if BTC value falls. This of course kills GAAP but Tesla get to write off some taxes. If it reverse back to the original value, then Tesla gets write that back into income and pay back the tax benefits. If BTC's value is beyond the initial buy in value, then there's no tax consequences as if the company bought shares of a different company. Key take away is that income loss will be on the balance sheet if BTC drops even if Tesla does not sell the asset.

Not sure if this is a benefit to Tesla or not, but we definitely need to start accounting for this in projected statements near quarter end.

 

[Rohan]

Awww no iKia. So sad.

Hyundai, Kia Say Not in Car Development Talks With Apple

Ha, don't you believe it. I'm on the inside and my proto type flat pack I-Kia has just arrived. I've unpacked all the bits and I'm about to start the assembly. I'm so excited, the first, flat pack, autonomous car, genius. Now let me see (first page), this doesn't look too hard, says the cast chassis isn't structurally sound, I need to insert the battery. OK good, huh, what do you know that's pretty stable, surprised Tesla didn't think of that. Right, what's next? OK, yes no problem MCU, motors, axles. Hold on, these wheels look a little whompy.... yeah, no that's got it. Wow this is really easy. Insert doors 1 to 5 into openings A to E, really this couldn't be simpler. I don't know what ask the fuss is about. (Turns page).
Construct neutral net, program AI, drive millions of miles to acquire data to feed to AI...

Oh

 

[buttershrimp]

Of all the things Elon might do that would make me nervous... his history with PayPal really makes me trust him on this one. I'd worry more about the implications of the steering yoke on nascent sales rather than bitcoin.... then again.... I like the steering yoke

 

[MC3OZ]

Meaning, there is so much new Battery Technology going on right now, so many new players that are working on the next big thing. We can only control what we have and what we are currently working on for future battery technology. We do not own all of these other firms out in the market coming up with new battery technology. We cannot be so sure that a new technology will not leapfrog what we have.

Timing is important, Battery Day is the right thing at the right time, in fact the timing is excellent, it could not be better.

Any new battery not only needs to be better than what was revealed at Battery Day, it needs to be cheaper, scale just as fast for the same capex and have the same level of backing.

It is likely that Tesla has been working on the Battery Day tech for years, anything thing that is lab scale now, might be years away from production. When it is in the lab, there is a limit on what more R&D dollars can do.

Tesla also just renewed the Jeff Dahn partnership, they are not going do nothing while others out innovate them.
In terms of picking the best R&D paths to follow now, knowledge and experience count,

 

[amolina]

NEWS: Elazar Advisors analyst Chaim Siegel upgraded $TSLA from Hold to Buy with a price target of $1,295.
https://twitter.com/SawyerMerritt/status/1358904329474879498?s=20

So it seems this BTC news has a mixed reaction among analysts too, it's not just the folks here that are in two camps.

Elazar is great, however about a few weeks ago, he bought into the FUD of USD tether coins and recommended to sell BTC.
BTC has moved ~40-50% upwards since his recommendation. BTC has the same rule as TSLA boys and girls.

Thou shall not trade TSLA and BTC, thou shall ONLY accumulate TSLA and BTC.

He has a new latest video here

 

[HG Wells]

What worries me the most, is if Elon miss places one of his prenups and loses half his company.

 

[gabeincal]

Sorry if this was posted. Norway's response.....

Now THAT'S more like it.

 

[LN1_Casey]

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1358930781314322433

There's now a full team to manage the 100m carbon capture process Overlord Musk is pushing.

Of course it's "X" prize. He sure does love that letter.

 

[Curt Renz]

ARK analyst Tasha Keeney discusses Tesla owning some bitcoins.

CNBC - 2 hours ago:

The longer version was deleted by CNBC, so here below is the shorter version. This may be a prelude to what Cathie Wood says at ARK's monthly webinar tomorrow.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

Rough maths.
If BTC falls to zero, Tesla will lose 0.2% of their market cap.
We’re up 0.78% today
So whatever we think about Bitcoin, we can’t lose.
Unless you sell shares.

It's more about trust in Elon's judgement.\ should it all go to crap. This feels like him taking a jab at the universe to see how much juice he really has these days. Fair enough. I'm sure it will appear perfectly logical once it's purpose is revealed, but it's a head-scratcher for now.

What I'd like to know is how on board the CFO was and if the board simply rubber stamps everything Elon wants.

No way of judging causation, but the world sure seems different since this Zach Kirkhorn fellow filled the CFO roll. He initiated the calmer sandbagging strategy that appears much more bulletproof for TSLA than the previous chaos. I wonder if he and Elon were high-fiving over this or fighting?

And the board IMO was able to push Elon into capital raises during the run-up, so they hold at least some sway(lol). Did Elon make an eloquent case for this BTC move or just fax them a receipt after it the transaction was processed?

Never a dull moment! <-- or perhaps that's half the point?

 

[Dutchie]

So, as a shareholder I have now Bitcoin too, albeit indirectly?

 

[Prunesquallor]

What worries me the most, is if Elon miss places one of his prenups and loses half his company.

Or forgets the Bitcoin wallet password.

 

[Dutchie]

I was going through the 10-K. What struck me is that in this Tesla is covering themselves for all kinds of outlandish risks.

As for FSD they did not state any risk technically. There was not anything like “if it does not pan out...”. They just pointed to the regulatory approval risks, not the technical risks.
I think they have FSD in the bag but are just holding back on putting it in the field, even to beta users.

 

[Knightshade]

I think they have FSD in the bag but are just holding back on putting it in the field, even to beta users.

Of what possible benefit to the mission (or the company, or to anyone, really) would that be?