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

[Artful Dodger]

View attachment 673821

Well, 2021 technically, but you get what I mean. Its the 'old' vs. the 'new'...

Cheers!

 

[Artful Dodger]

Is he saying he's better than Randy Pobst, seriously? lol

'zackly! "If only we had a driver with enuf experience to mash the gas and hold it there..."

Wot.a.luzer!

Cheers!

 

[Buckminster]

I am sure we all are a bit disappointed that the whole investing world doesn't have any clue what is happening with Tesla.
However, that will all be solved by time.
Now, it may be helpful that in the mean time we at least understand each other when communicating about our beloved stock.
As we have some British members here, may I suggest reading this in order to understand what some of us are writing?

View attachment 673888

Gosh, I have never seen that table before. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

 

[Thekiwi]

If you think Elon is going to get anywhere near as big of a pay package for his next deal, I have a bridge to sell ya. It's one thing to get a pay package like he got when the company is only a 30 billion company. Drastically different when the company is valued at 600 billion

Plus the conditions would be 10X harder to hit. The only reason it's been so impactful to earnings so far is literally because of the 2020 rally....otherwise it would have take years longer to complete.

The tranches are also released based on revenue and EBITDA operational milestones, which are being passed regardless of market cap.

Market cap based milestones are currently based on $50 billion increments, and the revenue milestones on ~$25 Billion increments, and Adj-EBITDA milestones of ~$2 billion increments.

I don’t see why a new follow-on compensation plan based on something like twice the above increments wouldn’t be perfectly acceptable by shareholders if Elon continues to forego a salary. So market cap milestones of $100 Billion increments, revenue milestones of $50 billion increments, and EBITDA milestones of $4 billion increments.

Most people on this board have long term price target expectations for Tesla that equate to a market cap in the multi trillions. I don’t see why Elon should not be rewarded in a similar manner as he is now if he manages to increase the market cap to anywhere near those expected levels.

(might even keep him on earth a little longer, but I doubt it - he is for sure going to Mars on that first crewed starship in ’27, ’29 or ‘31)

 

[inconel]

That table "is not bad"

 

[15Peter20]

I am sure we all are a bit disappointed that the whole investing world doesn't have any clue what is happening with Tesla.
However, that will all be solved by time.
Now, it may be helpful that in the mean time we at least understand each other when communicating about our beloved stock.
As we have some British members here, may I suggest reading this in order to understand what some of us are writing?

View attachment 673888

Very interesting.

 

[Artful Dodger]

For arguments sake. How much do you think he should get if Tesla's value increases from c.$600b to (e.g.) $3T? he would have created 5x more value than has been done to date. Should he get paid 5x what he has currently earned?

I think there's a strong argument for the next bonus plan to pay more than the current one, but it would probably bump up against limits on what is acceptable to society at some point.

IMO, Elon's already incentivized for that mkt cap gain. If he owns ~25% of TSLA, his net gain is about $600B (or 3 "Bezos"). Elon's 2018 CEO comp shares have to be held 5 yrs after vesting, and I expect TSLA to go to more like $6T by that time (Robotaxi realized). That's a net gain of $1.35T vs today's Mkt cap.

Elon has shown he is not motivated by money (he's selling his last California home, and lives in a $50K rental house in Boca Chica). Elon will use his TSLA weatlh to finance his dream of creating a colony on Mars. I expect that X.com will be a large part of his financial future, becoming a holding company for all his various businesses.

I also DO NOT expect Elon will ever sell his TSLA shares. Instead, I expect he will borrow against them at low margin rates, allowing their continued appreciation to outpace the slow increase in interest expense.

This is a future I find both exciting and compelling. But I don't think Elon needs more money to want it to succeed.

Cheers!

 

[SN_8]

Biggest risk is that Elon, unlike Jobs 2.0 and Bezos, continues failing to put a strong management team in place.

Surely you can't be srius.

None of us really know Elon's thoughts on this or the depth of his bench. And his management team has objectively performed quite well so far.

Furthermore, having execs leave does not mean that he is failing to put a strong management team in place. In fact it could mean the exact opposite.

 

[Prunesquallor]

For arguments sake. How much do you think he should get if Tesla's value increases from c.$600b to (e.g.) $3T? he would have created 5x more value than has been done to date. Should he get paid 5x what he has currently earned?

I think there's a strong argument for the next bonus plan to pay more than the current one, but it would probably bump up against limits on what is acceptable to society at some point.

How much does Elon think he needs for Mars colonization? I figure that’s the answer.

edit: what @Artful Dodger said

 

[Singuy]

2021 Ford F-Series Super Duty trucks recalled because front wheels could fall off

A number of 2021 Ford F-Series Super Duty pickups are being recalled because the front wheel and tire assembly could detach from the truck.

www.autoblog.com

 

[Mengy]

“Tesla Economist” YT channel gives reasons that he sees that support the 4680 in Plaid hypothesis.

Any thoughts, rebuttals?

This is his third video on the subject and he just keeps repeating the same conjecture and talking points over and over again. It's all loose speculation though, we don't actually know the weight of anything specifically. I think he's simply hunting for clicks and views while the topic is hot.

My hunch is the Model S still uses 18650's and the weight reduction is simply due to a new battery pack structure, lighter motors, and other weight saving improvements. If it really had 4680's I'd expect greater ranges for both cars, like what was specified for the Plaid+ which WAS going to use the 4680's. In fact, their cancelling of the Plaid+ leads me to suspect the 4680 line isn't outputting like they'd hoped just yet and they need more time to ramp the 4680 up.

 

[CorneliusXX]

IMO, Elon's already incentivized for that mkt cap gain. If he owns ~25% of TSLA, his net gain is about $600B (or 3 "Bezos"). Elon's 2018 CEO comp shares have to be held 5 yrs after vesting, and I expect TSLA to go to more like $6T by that time (Robotaxi realized). That's a net gain of $1.35T vs today's Mkt cap.

Elon has shown he is not motivated by money (he's selling his last California home, and lives in a $50K rental house in Boca Chica). Elon will use his TSLA weatlh to finance his dream of creating a colony on Mars. I expect that X.com will be a large part of his financial future, becoming a holding company for all his various businesses.

I also DO NOT expect Elon will ever sell his TSLA shares. Instead, I expect he will borrow against them at low margin rates, allowing their continued appreciation to outpace the slow increase in interest expense.

This is a future I find both exciting and compelling. But I don't think Elon needs more money to want it to succeed.

Cheers!

How much does Elon think he needs for Mars colonization? I figure that’s the answer.

edit: what @Artful Dodger said

Interesting discussion. I also find it an exciting and compelling future. I don't know how Elon would think about it but the natural appreciation of his currently owned stock is what he is paid as an investor to put his capital at risk. Wouldn't he want to also get paid as a CEO if he keeps devoting significant time to Tesla?

Agree he doesn't seem interested in blowing his cash on mega yachts, but colonising Mars is a bottomless pit. The more cash he can spend the faster he can scale the colony. Some R&D items probably won't happen much more quickly with extra cash, but items that need to be parallelised (e.g. building 100's or 1,000's of starships and fuel/launch capability, or 1000's of prefabbed living quarters, or setting up industry on Mars) could eat up all his cash and then some.

I would of course be happy if he didn't want any more cash but also wouldn't get my nose out of joint if he remained CEO and picked up a few more % of Tesla to get the company to the 3T-6T range estimated.

 

[Artful Dodger]

In fact, their cancelling of the Plaid+ leads me to suspect the 4680 line isn't outputting like they'd hoped just yet and they need more time to ramp the 4680 up.

Let's wait and see what happens in German court today. Those cells are a highly needed item. It'd be folly to turn off a 10 GWh/yr supply of 18650s when Model Y on 2 continents are waiting for the new form factor cells.

Then there's Semi. Then CT. Then Roaster... (those are just the 'high-NI' needs)

TL;dr Plaid S will continue with Japanese 18650s for years, just as Elon told us during the 2020 Q4 Conference Call.

 

[mongo]

Elon's 2018 CEO comp shares have to be held 5 yrs after vesting,

They must be held 5 years post exercise (minus sale to cover taxes and the $350.02 per share valuation pre-split(s), unless these costs are covered by outside cash (simultaneous leverage?) ). The clock has not yet started on any of the vested tranches which must be exercised by January 20, 2028, or 1 year post termination of employment, whichever comes first.
Proxy Statement

 

[Singuy]

This is his third video on the subject and he just keeps repeating the same conjecture and talking points over and over again. It's all loose speculation though, we don't actually know the weight of anything specifically. I think he's simply hunting for clicks and views while the topic is hot.

My hunch is the Model S still uses 18650's and the weight reduction is simply due to a new battery pack structure, lighter motors, and other weight saving improvements. If it really had 4680's I'd expect greater ranges for both cars, like what was specified for the Plaid+ which WAS going to use the 4680's. In fact, their cancelling of the Plaid+ leads me to suspect the 4680 line isn't outputting like they'd hoped just yet and they need more time to ramp the 4680 up.

I don't think much has changed with the battery production. Tesla is interested in making more money sooner since plaid motors were ready. The plaid+ was seriously preventing people from ordering the Plaid as we can tell by the allocation of ordering from the cybertruck(most people seriously don't mind spending more for more range). So they canceled plaid+ as a business decision. Plus they expects some delays from the batteries by guiding 12-18 months till volume production since battery day. If it's 18 months then it's 6 additional months of poor plaid sales.

 

[Nolimits]

This is his third video on the subject and he just keeps repeating the same conjecture and talking points over and over again. It's all loose speculation though, we don't actually know the weight of anything specifically. I think he's simply hunting for clicks and views while the topic is hot.

My hunch is the Model S still uses 18650's and the weight reduction is simply due to a new battery pack structure, lighter motors, and other weight saving improvements. If it really had 4680's I'd expect greater ranges for both cars, like what was specified for the Plaid+ which WAS going to use the 4680's. In fact, their cancelling of the Plaid+ leads me to suspect the 4680 line isn't outputting like they'd hoped just yet and they need more time to ramp the 4680 up.

while I agree with you, TE’s theory/speculation that it had the 4680 battery and the plaid is detuned (in terms of range) a bit is interesting. He felt that tesla is sandbagging the numbers and will allow us to “unlock” the range via software upgrade in few months or next year as part of strategy. He reports it would be great advertising strategy bc no other manufacturers can do that OTA. Possibly to control supply and demand?

 

[Artful Dodger]

Wouldn't he want to also get paid as a CEO if he keeps devoting significant time to Tesla?

Again, if things work according to plan, Elon will make over $200B per year on average for the next 6 years. That's 1 "Bezo" worth of assets each year.

Elon's not greedy. He's working to extend civilization to Mars. He needs some money to do that sure, but more and more he needs Starships.

Together, his Tesla stake (~$1.35T), his SpaceX (perhaps $1T by 2030?), his Starlink (another $T?), give him the capital he'll need.

Offering Elon more money won't change his goals, or his behavior. That's what pay incentives are designed to do, but that ship is already docked in port.

Why do any of use spend our time working here w/o a salary? How are we compensated? What makes it worth the time? The Mission? The SP gains? It's exactly the same for Elon, but I bet he has more fun!

Cheers!

 

[MC3OZ]

This is his third video on the subject and he just keeps repeating the same conjecture and talking points over and over again. It's all loose speculation though, we don't actually know the weight of anything specifically. I think he's simply hunting for clicks and views while the topic is hot.

My hunch is the Model S still uses 18650's and the weight reduction is simply due to a new battery pack structure, lighter motors, and other weight saving improvements. If it really had 4680's I'd expect greater ranges for both cars, like what was specified for the Plaid+ which WAS going to use the 4680's. In fact, their cancelling of the Plaid+ leads me to suspect the 4680 line isn't outputting like they'd hoped just yet and they need more time to ramp the 4680 up.

I agree 100% with the first part of the post.

On the last point, we don't actually know that Plaid+ was going to have 4680s.
My recollection is that Plaid+ was scheduled to ship in 2022, after Model Y from Berlin and Austin.
And probably after the ramp of 4680 cell production in Austin.

The only bit of speculation that makes sense to me was a Twitter post speculating that Plaid+ was bring built on the Roadster platform. If that means using a variant of the Roadster pack, that may or may not be 4680.

I'm only posting this to make the point that I think cancellation on the Plaid+ probably has nothing to do with the current state of the 4680 ramp. People are worrying on the basis of a very tenuous hypothesis.

 

[Artful Dodger]

TE’s theory/speculation that it had the 4680 battery and the plaid is detuned (in terms of range) a bit is interesting.

Actually, it's not "interesting", it's informative. We are informed that TE is unaware of the pack being at 455v at 100% SOC. That's not "detuned" (which itself is an awkward ICE analogy).

If the Plaid S pack was software limited (like the S/X 75 was in order to sell them as S/X 60), that would be revealed in the charge endpoints. You can't sandbag voltage.

TE has shown no knowledge of any of these issues which directly refute his position. Further, he doesn't even seem to be aware that the Tri-motor Plaid S uses two different rear motors than the old P100 S/X had, which had a single large heavy AC induction motor, and a differential (which Plaid doesn't have).

TL;dr You don't want to get your battery pack analysis from an Economist.

 

[UncaNed]

Are we concerned about flirting with the bottom of the 200 day moving average...? Asking because I'm gradually selling June 2022's and buying June 2023 LEAPS.

(and this is not my area of expertise, as I do not posses a degree in botany, you see...