Man there is a lot of negativity here nowadays. This forum is the reason I was I went all in back in 2019, and was able to "semi-retire" at young age at the end of 2020. Forever grateful for that, but at the present time I'm not sure if there is a lot of value here right now. Just bickering.
The stock sales by Elon sting for sure. But I can see it from his perspective pretty clearly. Tesla does not need a certain TSLA price to survive. It is almost meaningless to the success of the company and mission at this point. Elon's new ventures may not survive, so the his decision is very rational in that context. None of this approach should come as a surprise given we are talking about someone who made it clear in the past he felt the stock of his own company was overvalued. It is what it is. If you believe in the business fundamentally long term, none of this matters. If you actively trade or use leverage/margin, that's cool too but this is a reminder that Elon is going to Elon and he dgaf about anything other than whether the company itself is tracking to achieve its mission. That just needs to be a data point in thinking about how to play things.
I think hanging out on places like this forum, or on "TSLA twitter" when things are so negative does little to no good. Criticisms or negative outlooks just naturally feel more convincing when the share price is in the shitter. Not because they are more valid, but because no matter ones conviction (well for most of us) the market pricing something far lower than we think it should be will always allow doubt to creep in. That doubt makes ill informed or even worse, malicious, negative views feel just that bit more convincing. Emotion takes hold and bad decisions are made.
Places like this (while I do greatly appreciate it!) can give the false sense that there is a constant stream of actionable information, so consuming it regularly is helpful. In reality I don't think that's remotely close to true. Ultimately the long term thesis will be validated or rejected slowly over time.
Personally I believe very strongly that:
- Tesla has a unique approach to their products that is compelling in a completely unmatched way
- Tesla has a massive talent edge over all of their competition.
- Tesla has a culture of efficiency and productivity that is unrivaled amongst their competition.
- EVs are a superior technology for the vast majority of the population, and governments are clearly encouraging their adoption
- Tesla has the best chance to succeed at a fully functional self driving experience due to the scope of data they have available
- Tesla is the only company currently able to fully capitalize on the massive economies of scale that can be achieved with this new battery/electric world (e.g. battery learnings applying to cars and stationary grid storage, or high performance sedan electric motors being used to make more compelling Semi trucks)
None of these thesis will be suddenly invalidated tomorrow via some tweet, some post, or some news article. But if not careful times like these can mistakenly make one think all of them are invalid.
I'm not exactly a major contributor here, but I'm taking a step away (from here and Twitter) for this reason. I can feel that doubt creeping in bits here and there. I also de-risked myself a bit to sleep easier (TSLA at $400 definitely encouraged some fun little purchases on margin, after all what's the worst that could happen right?) and focus on the long term points I mentioned above.
In hindsight I believe it was pretty hard to justify TSLA was really a $400/share stock last year, but it's equally difficult to justify it's a $150/share stock now. This too shall pass.
www.tesmanian.com
