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

[Tommy O]

Shanghai Is set to “reopen*” for may 2. Case count has been declining in the city of 26M in which Tesla operates. Fabs were restarted before Tesla resumed production in Shanghai. Key suppliers were identified by Tesla and information sent to the CCP/companies

Beijing now the locus of new lockdown activity. In my opinion, this is the make or break point for the entire country’s covid policy. Beijing culture is (this is a terrible analogy but the best I have) closer to NYC culture than anything else I know. I personally love it, because I’m a rowdy arrogant urban-city-dweller. Beijingers will not be afraid to speak their minds.

Ignore most of the dumb pics you see on social media about ships being stuck offshore of China and zoom out. At the same time, consider the that the lockdowns are real and quite extreme.

I have no direct contacts at the Tesla, Shanghai factory, but I haven’t heard that they’ve stopped production due to parts shortages. So that’s positive.

*reopen seems to be with new guidelines for businesses?

 

[engle]

Did she decide to get back in on this dip, or still holding out for $800?

Hi @Electroman! Back in and buying more. She is all-in shares now through the split. The market always over reacts to weirdness like Elon buying Twitter and he might get margin calls. This deal won't close for months.

Perhaps part of that is programmatic trading reactions to the moves (e.g., 4/26 and 4/28 near the open)? On the downside, part of it is the short sellers. Retail traders are a very small part of the float now. It doesn't matter what we do.

I predict the $TSLA proxy will have us vote on increasing the authorized shares by ten (10) times at the annual meeting, which I predict will be Tuesday, June 7 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View at 2 PM. DM me if you'd like to meet up for an outdoor lunch beforehand.

The actual record date of a specific stock split will not be announced if $TSLA is still trading significantly below $1,000. When $TSLA trades near or above $1,000 again, then I predict the Board will announce a 10-for-1 split. "To the moon!"

I also sense that the Street is excess profiting off of Elon's naivete and good intentions regarding his acquisition of Twitter, trying to force him to put up additional shares.

What makes $TSLA challenging to trade is "Elon is always the Elephant in the room". You can try to "think like Elon" but you cannot predict his big moves. IMHO his purchase of Twitter is brilliant. Elon plays in an extra dimension compared to Jeff Bezos. Jeff bought WAPO (The Washington Post) to influence U.S. public opinion, lawmakers, and the executive branch to benefit $AMZN. Elon is buying Twitter to positively influence the world! (and help his companies) I'm very happy he's doing it. Long term, it will be a "business case" analyzed at places like Stanford and Harvard B-schools.

Other moves this week:

I loaded up on $RIVN to dollar-cost average it down since $AMZN backs it so it is not going anywhere. I also loaded up to a lesser extent on $LCID partly because my 89 year old mother decided to order a long range Lucid Air to replace her ancient Lincoln tank. She did so because of the ~520 miles EPA range and the interior is like a more traditional luxury sedan. I won't be investing in any of the ICE --> EV companies because their ICE business got scr*w*d by oil ~$100/bbl. Their tech is way behind Tesla, they cannot manufacture their own batteries, they have conflicted dealer networks, and many have union labor.

O/T:

I also bought thousands of shares in a name trading around $3 per share after I analyzed it's investor presentation (and other technical due diligence). I'm not prepared to identify it now since I might buy more of it. It has nothing to do with Tesla's business. Long term, it has the potential to become the Tesla in its area of focus. It's fun to invest early (like I did in 2011 here) and wait to see if it becomes another e-Toys or a Tesla.

 

[MP3Mike]

That’s 4.4 billion from just Tuesday. He sold on Wednesday and today as well. So it’s probably around 10-12 billion in total

No, the $4.4B includes Wednesday.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

Just politicians who's salaries are paid by the American taxpayer, and become millionaires without actually doing anything except try to tear down the most productive people of our generation (and call THEM free-loaders).

I totally agree. All Warren ever says is that Wall Street is full of criminals. She's so out of touch.

Taxpayer bailouts are a perfectly rational component of American capitalism.

 

[wipster]

So down 100 points at the open or more?

 

[TheTalkingMule]

It's really not that big. He's raising $4B to $5B out of something like $170B he controls.

The daily volume is often $20B+, so his sale is certainly enough to move the buy/sell meter but it's not epic.

Of that $20B in volume each day, maaaaaybe 10% are actual transactions and not MM's & hedge funds robotrading without changing their actual position.

I'd say Elons sales these few days constitute more than is actually sold in total on a normal day.

 

[Gigapress]

I hope he at least did this smart tax-wise, and sold off shares he recently acquired with his options exercises months ago.

Last time he sold shares, he deliberately maximized capital gains tax to help persuade people he’s not a tax dodger, just a hodler.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1459667633419128833

 

[StealthP3D]

Guess I’ll be getting apologies from @MartinAustin @keydiver @Krugerrand @Coolio2000 @StealthP3D @GOVA @floydboy @JRP3 @BabyBull @Blue horseshoe @Chenkers @Artful Dodger @mongo @MP3Mike @EVMeister @WarpedOne

You don't get an apology from me; I have nothing to apologize for. I never said Elon wasn't selling or that he wouldn't sell, I said he has every right to sell if he wants. I don't have any sympathy for those losing money playing short-term options. They have no more right to make money than Elon has to sell his shares at market prices. Because they should know the short-term is full of risks that are not known until after the fact.

I'm holding calls but they don't expire until 2024 so this has zero impact on me and that is by design. I'm constantly surprised by how much importance people continue to put on the day to day price movements considering this is an investors thread, not a gambling thread. So when you said "No one's discussing the fact that Elon may be selling 21M shares to fund the tender offer for Twitter." as if there was something wrong with a lack of discussion on a minor and temporary detail that has no impact on the reasons for investing in TSLA in the first place, I disagreed. Any one who wanted to discuss it could and yet there was really not a lot to discuss except to speculate endlessly that he may or may not sell shares, no one could say one way or the other.

 

[traxila]

So I was right on Tuesday. Elon was selling hand over fist to save democracy by buying TWTR. I still love him though. He gave me, and the whole world at this point, electric cars.

While I may have been premature posting based on my gut, market action and EMs proclivity for decisive moves, those who were angry at posters like me for making ‘stupid proclamations’ (not quoting anyone there. Just summarizing) when seasoned investors know better and how it was impossible for EM to be doing this…. Well look in the mirror. You were wrong and EM had this ready to go from weeks ago. He is a pretty smart guy after all and can sometimes see the future as we already know.

I am actually very happy over this. It needed to happen, it did happen, it is over with and I am not a clueless idiot all the time.

The market will get sacked tomorrow but I think TSLA will do OK.

All the best TSLA longs!

 

[UnknownSoldier]

Either back up that 100% incontrovertible, hard statement with some proof, or take a 420 week vacation. The amount of conspiratorial posts sloshing around this thread over the past days is alarming in that it shows how uninformed, lazy, unsophisticated or some combination of all three are too many members of this forum. A spectacularly high number of experienced investors have tirelessly spent up to a dozen years here assisting others - how it is that so much of that work is for naught does not provide much hope for the "individual investor" as a market force to be dealt with by any action other than....fleecing.

It was only two days ago that I was threatened by moderation with a "420 week vacation" for expressing the unpopular opinion that Elon was selling shares. Since then a lot has changed it seems. Let the record show that I may not in fact be as "uninformed, lazy, unsophisticated, or some combination of all three" as I was thought of as. Perhaps in the future people in charge around here could consider being nicer to their users, and maybe in light of recent events it would be also nice if fellow members could all be nicer to each other. After all, we are all TSLA shareholders here and supposedly "on the same side". Thank you for listening.

MODERATOR: On the contrary, yours was and, unamended, remains a prime example of pontificating without the facts to back it up. That there were plenty of other posters doing the same neither exonerates you nor puts you in good company.

 

[Bet TSLA]

I think you should reconsider Elon's ability in terms of the politics of people given his outsized success at quickly becoming a favorite contractor at NASA because that's a good ol' boy club of large cap defense and space contractors who are loath to let small outsiders in. The fact that such a small upstart could play so effectively in such a public/private closed-door political mess shows skills that go far beyond the technical.

As to the supposed Tesla "service problem", I would suggest to you that the current state of affairs shows beyond reasonable doubt that Elon focused like a laser on the things that actually mattered most to their success. This laser-like focus is evidenced by waiting lists that are longer than anyone, top of the charts consumer satisfaction ratings, and financials and profit margins that put established legacy automakers to shame.

I don't know Jon McNeill but I would suggest it's for the better that he is no longer with Tesla. If it's for the worse, you would never know it by looking at demand for Tesla products or the consumer satisfaction ratings that beat ANY car out there. Elon understands people better than you think or his customers would not be the happiest in the industry.

I get so tired of hearing of Tesla's supposed service problems. I've had more service problems at Ford, Mazda, Volvo and Les Schwab Tires than any minor issues experienced at a Tesla Service Center. I actually prefer Tesla Service for tires and such over the industry leader in my corner of the world, Les Schwab. This isn't a service thread so I suggest you take it to the appropriate thread but my point is, I think you would have to distort the facts pretty hard to make a convincing case that Elon doesn't know how to navigate people. You don't get to where he is on technical excellence alone.

Negotiating NASA politics is why Gwynne Shotwell is at SpaceX. She does a great job. No reason to believe Elon does anything but stay out of the way on that aspect of things. Pretty sure SpaceX would have failed if it had to rely on Elon doing the politics. You should read Eric Berger's book, Liftoff.

As to your three paragraphs about "service", they are irrelevant. I said "communications" and that's what I meant. Tesla pretty much avoids communicating with their customers. And if you ever get to talk to anybody there, it's very clear that they don't talk to each other and don't know who can address whatever issue you might have.

Twitter is all about communications. It's something Elon doesn't really care about at the human level. Everything he talks about fixing is technical stuff. I'm sure he'll be successful at that. But his naive belief that if you enable free speech then everything will be fine is contradicted by pretty much all of human history. Civilization is all about giving up individual freedoms in exchange for community peace and order.

 

[UCF3]

You don't get an apology from me; I have nothing to apologize for. I never said Elon wasn't selling or that he wouldn't sell, I said he has every right to sell if he wants. I don't have any sympathy for those losing money playing short-term options. They have no more right to make money than Elon has to sell his shares at market prices. Because they should know the short-term is full of risks that are not known until after the fact.

I'm holding calls but they don't expire until 2024 so this has zero impact on me and that is by design. I'm constantly surprised by how much importance people continue to put on the day to day price movements considering this is an investors thread, not a gambling thread. So when you said "No one's discussing the fact that Elon may be selling 21M shares to fund the tender offer for Twitter." as if there was something wrong with a lack of discussion on a minor and temporary detail that has no impact on the reasons for investing in TSLA in the first place, I disagreed. Any one who wanted to discuss it could and yet there was really not a lot to discuss except to speculate endlessly that he may or may not sell shares, no one could say one way or the other.

The problem is folks can’t bring up any contrarian views without getting 20 downvotes or threatened with a ban. Literally no one wanted to entertain the idea that Elon would sell millions of shares except me and a couple other posters. $120 billion loss later here we are. Might have been nice to discuss on Friday

 

[bkp_duke]

Last time he sold shares, he deliberately maximized capital gains tax to help persuade people he’s not a tax dodger, just a hodler.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1459667633419128833

I understand that.

I'm just hoping that he didn't incur additional undue pain just to make the same point again. Seems pointless, especially when Elon went out of his way to point out that the Gov is the least efficient allocator of capital resources. I trust him with capital allocation far more than most, especially the US Gov.

 

[Dutchie]

Maybe I can help you understand this. Yes, people are stupid and gullible and Elon's not going to fix that by buying Twitter. But it's normal for people to be stupid and gullible - it's a human trait because we are not as smart as many of us think we are. This has always been the case.

The really big problem facing humanity right now, the newest problem since we became aware of global climate issues, is that the tools people use to communicate with each other are amplifying their stupidity, hatred and ignorance and threatening to bring down all that is otherwise normally good about democracy and even capitalism itself. These communication platforms have been proven beyond a reasonable doubt to amplify stupidity, hate and ignorance. Elon cannot prevent stupidity, hate and ignorance from existing, but he can reconfigure the communication platforms so they do not amplify the very things that are threatening humanity. This could change the trajectory of human civilization for the better and it's something that can be done without taking sides with liberals or conservatives.

It can be done while respecting people's right to speak their minds. It can be done while using open-source code and transparent rules instead of current rules that are hidden, mysterious and opaque. The current platforms are broken and they need fixing. And it is urgent if Elon is to carry out his other missions. That is why I say there is a strong synergy between the mission statement of Tesla and fixing social media. The only way to fix the biggest problems facing humanity is for all people to come together and that is currently not possible given the way information is disseminated and analyzed in the current state of reality.

“think about how stupid the average person is, and then you realize that half the population is even stupider than that..” - George Carlin

 

[SunCatcher]

Honestly I am totally over elon and his twitter thing. What a pointless waste of his time effort and resources.

Yes indeed. And now, on top of it all, he's starting to speculate on these investments called PayPal and Zip2 and X.com. WTF Elon? What are you thinking man?

 

[StealthP3D]

It was only two days ago that I was threatened by moderation with a "420 week vacation" for expressing the unpopular opinion that Elon was selling shares. Since then a lot has changed it seems. Let the record show that I may not in fact be as "uninformed, lazy, unsophisticated, or some combination of all three" as I was thought of as. Perhaps in the future people in charge around here could consider being nicer to their users, and maybe in light of recent events it would be also nice if fellow members could all be nicer to each other. After all, we are all TSLA shareholders here and supposedly "on the same side". Thank you for listening.

I should let moderators speak for themselves but my understanding was "vacation" that was threatened was because you worded speculation as a fact. Whether your speculation turned out to be true or false doesn't matter.

I'm a big fan of saying what you mean. Sometimes people word speculation as fact but it is obvious which it is. While I thought it likely you were just speculating, I was not sure. Part of me thought maybe I missed something that really did confirm Elon was selling. But no, we didn't get that until Elon tweeted today that he was done selling.

 

[Krugerrand]

Guess I’ll be getting apologies from @MartinAustin @keydiver @Krugerrand @Coolio2000 @StealthP3D @GOVA @floydboy @JRP3 @BabyBull @Blue horseshoe @Chenkers @Artful Dodger @mongo @MP3Mike @EVMeister @WarpedOne

No need for me to apologize for disagreeing with something you posted.

Let me be specific for you; I disagreed nobody was talking about Elon possibly selling shares. I disagreed with the figure of 21m - and rightly so since it was nowhere near that many. And I disagreed it was important for those playing options because mostly I would prefer they couldn’t seeing as TSLA accounts for 50% of the entire options market and that shouldn’t be allowed to happen because, well, do I really need to explain why after all these years of options shenanigans?

Additionally, had I been inclined to apologize for anything, all inclination vanishes the second someone thinks it’s a good idea to make a production of it. Now I want that person to go the way of dodo.

 

[StealthP3D]

Negotiating NASA politics is why Gwynne Shotwell is at SpaceX. She does a great job. No reason to believe Elon does anything but stay out of the way on that aspect of things. Pretty sure SpaceX would have failed if it had to rely on Elon doing the politics. You should read Eric Berger's book, Liftoff.

As to your three paragraphs about "service", they are irrelevant. I said "communications" and that's what I meant. Tesla pretty much avoids communicating with their customers. And if you ever get to talk to anybody there, it's very clear that they don't talk to each other and don't know who can address whatever issue you might have.

Twitter is all about communications. It's something Elon doesn't really care about at the human level. Everything he talks about fixing is technical stuff. I'm sure he'll be successful at that. But his naive belief that if you enable free speech then everything will be fine is contradicted by pretty much all of human history. Civilization is all about giving up individual freedoms in exchange for community peace and order.

I think you are making the same mistake I see a lot of articles about Elon's Twitter acquisition making, specifically that it's all about freedom of speech. I don't think that's the primary driver here or what people should be focusing on. It's just one aspect of many and it's getting an inordinate amount of focus. Elon never said the simple act of less censorship would fix Twitter. The problems run much deeper than that.

 

[Artful Dodger]

That explains a little how we can have the best earnings in history and drop close to 20%.

That only explains Tue-Thu. We dropped 11% the day after the best earnings in history, and 3 days before Elon's sales.

BTW, a simple micro-economics model says that extracting $4.0B in capital from TSLA stock should result in an equilbrium SP decrease of $4.60 (yeah, not $120 or more per share).

Elon sold ~3.6 M shares on Tuesday. Volume was ~45 M, or about 20 M shares above average. This drop was about 88% attributable to short/panic selling, and about 12% to Elon's sales.

Long term, just more stories to tell our kidz.

 

[StealthP3D]

The problem is folks can’t bring up any contrarian views without getting 20 downvotes or threatened with a ban. Literally no one wanted to entertain the idea that Elon would sell millions of shares except me and a couple other posters. $120 billion loss later here we are. Might have been nice to discuss on Friday

It was discussed, endlessly. And no one prevented the discussion as long as people did not state speculation as fact. I simply disagreed that we should be discussing it more since I think it's not fundamental to an investment in Tesla and there was no way to determine whether he was or wasn't selling.

The fact that he sold actually de-risks an investment in TSLA going forward in two distinct ways. Do you know what they are?

BTW, my disagree on your post above is because you claimed a contrarian view could not be discussed without threat of a ban.

That is simply false.