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

[Discoducky]

After working with several police agencies for about a year, I can kinda understand why it has taken so long to get off of legacy auto's contracts, but now, there just isn't any reason. So many agencies have shown it is saving massive amounts of money and it is safest car ever...so there's that.

This is a great quote from this article: Berea Police Department sees massive savings after just 6 months of using Tesla Model 3 cruisers

"”They’re saving us money. I’ve already saved $7,000 this year, three vehicles, in fuel alone. And this is not even counting the increase in fuel. This is off of last year’s fuel numbers.I’m saving the tax payers money, because the reality is there’s no maintenance. The only fluid on this thing is windshield washer fluid,” Mayor Fraley told WKYT."

 

[mongo]

Answering a couple of questions to do with this and CA taxation of option grants.
First, the tax must be withheld by the broker, not "can be", and not by Tesla, but that's just a nit. It gets sent directly to the relevant tax authorities.
No tax is payable on the grant of options, either to the IRS or the FTB (Franchise Tax Board, the California equivalent of the IRS).
However California considers options granted to an employee to be income in the state the employee lives in at the time of grant. So all of Elon's options will, when exercised, be considered to be income earned in California, and taxed as such by both IRS and FTB. Even if he lives in Elysium Planitia.

Source: 25 years of experience exercising and granting options in CA.

Gotcha, so to CA grant is the start of the plan, Vest doesn't matter, and exercise is the tax trigger? Is this site correct that the longer Elon waits and lives/ works outside CA, the less he will pay to CA when he exercises the nonqualified stock options?
Will You Owe CA Tax After You Leave?

However, if you were a CA resident at grant but a non-CA resident when you exercised, CA uses the “days worked” calculation to determine how much of the wage income is attributable to services performed while in CA.

Looks correct based on @bkp_duke's link witha different example since the quoted one involved quitting the company nefire leaving CA.

Services performed within and outside of California​

If you performed services for the corporation both within and outside California, you must allocate to California that portion of total compensation reasonably attributed to services performed in this state. (California Code of Regulations, Title 18, Section 17951-5(b))


One reasonable method is an allocation based on the time worked. The period of time you performed services includes the total amount of time from the grant date to the exercise date (or the date your employment ended, if earlier).


The allocation ratio is:


California workdays from grant date to exercise date ÷ Total workdays from grant date to exercise date


Income taxable by California = Total stock option income × allocation ratio


Example 3


On July 1, 2009, while a resident of Texas, your company grants you nonstatutory stock options. On July 1, 2010, your company permanently transfers you to California. On July 1, 2013, you leave the company and permanently move to Florida. From July 1, 2009 through July 1, 2013, you worked for the company a total of 700 days in California and 300 days in other states. On August 1, 2013, you exercise your options.


Determination:


The difference between the fair market value of your shares on August 1, 2013, and the option price is stock option income characterized as compensation for services. The total workdays from grant date to exercise date equal 1000 workdays (700 California workdays + 300 other state workdays). Your allocation ratio is .70 (700 California workdays ÷ 1000 total workdays). Therefore, California will tax 70 percent of your total stock option income.

 

[H Mak]

Discussing share price predictions reminds of an exchange of texts I had with my friend in March. He's more of a dabbler than a serious investor and only bought 10 TSLA pre-split to get me off his back.

With the price plummeting he asked me what I was doing about it. This is my reply, verbatim:

" I've been buying throughout January, February and March. Bargain basement prices for a stock that will be $1,000 in a year"

That text was sent 5th March when TSLA closed at $597.

 

[Thumper]

My estimate of TSLA price remains as always. I have no specific idea what it will be at any given date. That is why my successful strategy was and is to HOLD. My firm conviction is that the direction will be up for several more years. I sleep well.

 

[mars_or_bust]

I wasn't going to post this until I reached a certain round number (not far to go now). For those who aren't aware, horrible histories is a children's' educational program/ book series. This song is about "the world's richest geezer", which is how some of us are feeling this week

Curse you - you got me now hooked in the Horrible Histories

 

[JohnnyEnglish]

After a couple of years where we have been able to estimate/track production and delivery ramps fairly well due to having reasonable information sources in China (monthly sales, export and production), 2022 brings the added (but welcome) complication of both Berlin and Texas ramps. As we currently get no information from the US (Fremont) I am assuming there will be a similar lack of monthly info for Austin. However I did wonder if anyone in Germany could tell us if trade or industry bodies in Germany produce monthly production and/or sales plus export figures that will allow us to estimate/track the ramp in Berlin in a similar manner to Shanghai?

Also looking forward to seeing the MIC Y production figures for October/November to see if they are getting close to the reported 1600/day run rate. One would hope that Berlin/Austin Y will have target production rates that are at least as good as Shanghai.

 

[Christine69420]

So possibly lower steel and aluminium costs for Tesla eventually:

​

U.S., EU end Trump-era tariff war over steel and aluminum​

U.S., EU end Trump-era tariff war over steel and aluminum

Raimondo said the deal will reduce costs for steel-consuming U.S. manufacturers. Steel prices have more than tripled in the past year to records topping $1,900 a ton as the industry has struggled to keep up with a demand surge after COVID-19 pandemic-related shutdowns, contributing to inflation.

 

[mejojo]

I’ve been splitting all my ditm medium term calls and 2x the contract price then selling a new short term atm call against the new long term call. That has only kept pace with the stock but has also reduced my short term realized gains to almost zero (because the atm calls have been run over so hard) and moved them to short term unrealized gains (because the split medium term calls have been gaining). Rollling the sold weekly calls the last three weeks has been very stressfull. What a month!

I may not be understanding your strategy, but doesn't the net zero gains rely on avoiding wash sales?

 

[Rarity]

Some serious questions for 30th August:
1. What did Tesla invest in GF Austin, and move HQ to Texas when Texas will not allow Tesla to be sold by them through stores?
2. What did Texas BEV incentives explicitly exclude Tesla?
3. To both questions, why did Texas stay discussion of automating exclude Tesla entirely?

https://gov.texas.gov/uploads/files/business/txauto-report.pdf

Their excuse may be that they're still using 2013 data.
4.Why has Texas suddenly acted to encourage the FAA to restrict SpaceX activities in Boca Chica?

This all is beginning to seem 'slightly suspicious'

Perhaps Tesla dn SpaceX may have been a bit premature in their enthusiasm.

Regarding #4, I have not heard that Texas has been in any unhelpful or unsupportive with regard to SpaceX. Do you have a link to where this is referenced or discussed?

 

[JustSaying]

So possibly lower steel and aluminium costs for Tesla eventually:

​

U.S., EU end Trump-era tariff war over steel and aluminum​

U.S., EU end Trump-era tariff war over steel and aluminum

Raimondo said the deal will reduce costs for steel-consuming U.S. manufacturers. Steel prices have more than tripled in the past year to records topping $1,900 a ton as the industry has struggled to keep up with a demand surge after COVID-19 pandemic-related shutdowns, contributing to inflation.

Yup, guess this was too good to continue...

“Our balance sheet has been transformed and the cash flow generation of the business has us highly confident in our ability to pre-fund organic growth investments that will expand our existing competitive advantages."

Why United States Steel Shares Are Surging Today

United States Steel Corp (NYSE: X) is trading significantly higher Friday after the company announced better-than-expected third-quarter financial results, initiated a buyback and raised its quarterly dividend. United States Steel reported quarterly adjusted earnings of $5.36 per share, which...

finance.yahoo.com

 

[Skipdd]

God I get so bored on the weekends and I’m currently on vacation in Nashville. I get help for my TSLA addiction haha

Interesting. We are on vacation in Montreal. Was really happy to see that Hertz will have Teslas for rent in Canada for future trips. Missed all the play by play calls as the SP went up on Friday. Am glad for the weekend break - time for other stuff w/o FOMO.

 

[JustSaying]

refers to deleted post

"Who is Elon Musk?"

 

[Maarten]

This weekend I was pondering: why am I always discussing the FUD about Tesla with people I know, and on the other hand am I not too interested in the going to Mars, compared with Tesla?
Well, it suddenly dawned upon me.
My parents foresaw this and blessed me with the name Maarten.

Maarten is derived from Martinus, a boy's name that was originally a Latin nickname.
It is a diminutive form of 'Martius', which means 'from Mars'.
And Mars was the god of war, the name means 'battle' or 'fight'.

So, there you have it. Been there, done that. Literally.
It's in my veins. No need to fight that.
Owning TSLA has for 8 years felt like a fight to me. But here we are.

 

[Stretch2727]

Maybe this will push Biden and the democrats into some sanity on the EV tax credit.

International opposition mounts over proposed U.S. EV tax credit

The European Union, Germany, Canada, Japan, Mexico, France, South Korea, Italy and other countries wrote U.S. lawmakers saying a proposed U.S. electric vehicle tax credit violates international trade rules, according to a joint letter made public Saturday.

www.reuters.com

This why I believe the existing tax credit applied to all manufacturers equally regardless of location of manufacture or union status.

Personally I think it needs to be as simple as possible.

 

[UnknownSoldier]

Does reaching Telsanaire x 3 qualify?

No one cares after the first million. You'll need to hit the next big milestone at 10 million for people to care again.

 

[BitJam]

I've never posted a YouTube link before, but just saw this commercial on the Michigan-Michigan State game. In case I screwed this up, it's for the GMC Sierra hands-free driving feature. Like, they literally have words on the screen saying "Hands Free". I mean, good for GMC, but...

I wonder what Voldemissy Cummings thinks about this?

I wondered the same thing. My thought is that if the anti-Tesla forces in government don't wise up and realize that if they succeed, they are only helping China there there will be a Battle Royale. It will be a significant speed bump for Tesla and TSLA but Elon will ultimately prevail partly because of ads like this, partly because of corporate allies like Hertz, and mostly because of facts and data. It will end up being a huge boost for Tesla. They will be able to clear the air and get gobs of free publicity while they do it.

The smartest thing the anTesla forces can do to damage Tesla (which isn't smart) is to continue to snipe away and try to quietly spread a miasma of FUD that gets amplified by the media. A frontal assault banning or significantly slowing FSD development will cause an utter s**t storm to rain down on them. In the long run getting it out in the open may be the best thing for Tesla because it could mark the end of the FUD-era.

 

[Opus BC fan]

No one cares after the first million. You'll need to hit the next big milestone at 10 million for people to care again.

and then what is the next celebration milestone?

...just asking for a friend.

 

[Mike Ambler]

Okay then, predict $1,208.50 for the Dec 31, 2021 Closing SP, based on YTD δ.

If I've learned anything in the last 4.5 year, I've learned that I have no idea.

 

[MC3OZ]

Some serious questions for 30th August:
1. What did Tesla invest in GF Austin, and move HQ to Texas when Texas will not allow Tesla to be sold by them through stores?
2. What did Texas BEV incentives explicitly exclude Tesla?
3. To both questions, why did Texas stay discussion of automating exclude Tesla entirely?

https://gov.texas.gov/uploads/files/business/txauto-report.pdf

Their excuse may be that they're still using 2013 data.
4.Why has Texas suddenly acted to encourage the FAA to restrict SpaceX activities in Boca Chica?

This all is beginning to seem 'slightly suspicious'

Perhaps Tesla dn SpaceX may have been a bit premature in their enthusiasm.

I see the investment at Austin as having a 20-30 year timeframe, and IMO a lot will happen in the next 20 years..

This is how I see it playing out, which is really only an educated guess.

Next 5 years - Good value for money Chinese EVs arrive in numbers in Europe, the US and all other major markets. A lot of the current "pushback" against Tesla is redirected to "pushback" against Chinese EVs.

10 Years, - The transition to EVs is seen as inevitable by all, the oil industry and car dealers are in structural decline, and have a lot less money for political lobbying, Increasingly they are focused inwardly, trying to transition, or salvage what they can...

15 Years - This is the cut-off date by which the fate of legacy auto is largely sealed one way or another. What remains of legacy auto has probably spent 10 years trying to fight off the Chinese. Tesla/SpaceX and other Musk industries are major industries in Texas with a lot of employees and their families who all have a vote.

20 Year - Mordor is mostly gentrified, Texas is 20 years time is very different to Texas today...

For the intervening 20 years, the factory is in the right location and the fundamentals of making cars in high volumes, with good margins, in a central location are all that matter...

Short term I doubt Tesla is at all focused on Texas politics, it is all about having the best possible factory, in the best possible location.

Whenever Elon thinks Tesla is getting a raw deal, all he needs to do is post on Twitter, that never fails to make the news.

 

[Prunesquallor]

One not-terrible thing in the BBB proposal I didn’t know about.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/10/29/biden-fossil-fuels/

One change would eliminate an oil and gas exception to a 2017 law that taxes foreign profits of U.S. companies. According to the White House’s calculations, the adjustment would bring in as much as $84.7 billion over 10 years, depending on the corporate tax rate.
The reconciliation proposal would also reinstate the tax on crude oil that was designed to support environmental cleanup efforts under the EPA’s Superfund program but which expired in 1995. The proposal would generate an estimated $38 billion over 10 years.