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

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Has there been any discussion somewhere about the biggest flaw in this whole debacle?

If Elon owned 100% of Tesla and fully controlled whatever AI and robots Tesla built, exactly how would that save the world from whatever bad would happen if he didn't?

How would that protect us from the Chinese, North Koreans or for that matter any owners of companies that are in this sector?

Even assuming that Tesla gets there first. Is Elon, and so many others it seems, really thinking that no one else will ever solve this? Be it one year, three years or a decade later.

How would Elon controlling Teslas AI save the world from whatever bad Elon thinks others will do with AI?

He needs the money to bail out Twitter and fund his Mars aspirations. That's what it is really all about.
 
How would Elon controlling Teslas AI save the world from whatever bad Elon thinks others will do with AI?
Elon has expressed great displeasure over Open AI being created as a positive contribution to the world's future, and then watching it being turned into a profit making mission goal. When pressure for profit becomes the motive, products can be pushed to market before they're proven safe, for the sake of money. That's fine with many things, but not AI, which could turn out to be extremely dangerous for humanity.

I believe Elon's main worry is that Tesla's foray into AI and robotics could be put on the express train to product profitability, above caution and safety. He's seen it happen before. He wants to have a say in it this time around.

Just my somewhat humble opinion.
 
Having sadly read a bunch of random comments on reddit today about Tesla, I have to vent a bit:

I am so sick of the negativity, cynicism, and outright lies and FUD that is out there.

As a self-described Reddit addict, it's important to remember that it (and most social media) is designed to be an echo chamber.

Reddit moderators are volunteers, and in return the site gives them almost full discretion at shaping the discussion on their subreddits. I've been banned from /r/solar and /r/news for even talking about Tesla positively. It only takes a handful of people on the site (and many of the top subreddits share mods) that decide they hate Elon to make any positivity they don't want to see completely disappear.

But social media does not reflect reality. For all the extreme opinions online, you'll find very moderate opinions in person.
 
How about the Test board synthesizes enough shares to give Elon the control he feels he needs and he buys them by paying each TSLS shareholder an appropriate number of shares in X. He gets his control and we are compensated for the dilution. I do not have any idea how legal this would be and I personally don't want to be a shareholder in X but..... Also it would be difficult to agree on a value of X.
 
The Bot Will Drive Future Valuation of Tesla

I've been pondering over this for a few months. We all likely came to Tesla years ago to route for the acceleration of a path to a sustainble energy future via electrified vehicles and energy products. That path is well on it's way now. We then looked excitedly at adjacent ventures, mostly robotaxis, as an exciting path to grow the company's value while aligned with greenfiying the economy.

But the path toward a software stack that is at a high enough level of fidelity to "turn on" for robotaxis nationwide may still years away. While FSD progress has been good and should improve with iterations of V12, we can't ignore the rigorous statistical nature that is required to be true robotaxi. While the FSD Beta Tracker estimates of about 100 miles / critical disengagement may be biased, we know it's not near the 10,000 miles / critical disengagement we need to get to to allow the car to work as a robotaxi. My best estimate is that the software needs to reduce interventions / disengagements by a factor of 10x at minimum, if not 100x to reach that utility.

I do believe that is achievable, but on what timeframe is less clear. I do know that I will rely more on quantitative metrics too the progress than simply listening to Youtubers alone. No bias in entries can mask a 10x improvement in rates. I am excited to see this happen over the next year or two. This can add a trillion dollars in valuation.

But what I've realized is that Tesla can deliver a subset of the eventual utility of the Bot in a much shorter time frame than we may be expecting. As I did my graduate work in modeling humanoid robotics, I am explicity attentive to how well it will learn a robust dynamic balancing policy to handle diverse environments. This is essential for allow the Bot to be used at a wide volume and scale of tasks.

But, does that even need to be achieved for a company to use the bot in a profitable manner?

Let me attempt to "skate where the puck is going".

Tesla has already illustrated a highly competent hardware package, even in the video shared yesterday.


We know even outside of Tesla, that there is an acceleration of progress on deep neural nets for learning and executing a range of manipulation tasks. These bots will be able to watch a human perform a task a series of times, then be able to generally replicate it.

When I look at the hardware and software stack, and integrate it with what Tesla's AI team will be able to execute in a year or two from now, I see the Bot being able to perform a decent variety of tasks, even if limited in locomotive capabilities.

Imagine, for instance, if the Bot was only trained to perform a set of tasks in a fast food restaurant. Identifying the types of pieces of chicken, combining the various sides as per what was ordered, and putting it into the bag and giving to the customer. The perception and dexterity capabilities are already there. The bot may not be able to perform all tasks in the restaurant, but I bet it could handle 1 out of 4 employees.

Employees are expensive. In California, minimum wage is $15 / hour, so for 12 hours a day, you will spend almost $70k per year for that work.

A company would easily pay $35k / year for a Bot to replace that human work.

There are 200,000 fast food restaurants in the U.S. alone. If they are purchased for $50k with 50% gross margins, that's 5 billion dollars in gross profit. We haven't even talked about any other works in the restaurant, let alone other jobs.

The potential profit of the Bot is simply orders of magnitude higher than robotaxis, and the threshold performance is lower for many jobs. You can have a Bot that ruins 5% of the food and still be massively profitable. A 5% hiccup in a car is unacceptable.

Given all this, it seems to be the Bot might be able to start generating revenues and profits before any robotaxi services. In fact I predict it. I believe Tesla Bot will generate a billion dollars in profits before robotaxis, and never look back.

And when this happens - maybe 2-3 years from now - the market will being valuing the future growth of that market and the numbers could be staggering - adding multiple trillions to the market cap.
 
If that's the case, then a major share buyback would accomplish that. Works for me. I'm actually fine with a new compensation package and share buybacks. I just don't buy the voting control story.
You're right, it would and I too would be fine with it. There are other methods being discussed, like a class B stock, that Elon is fine with.

But, #1 it's not about money... if he ends up with more I'm sure he'd be fine with it, but he doesn't want to get caught flat-footed again as with what happened with OpenAI.
 
Can someone well versed in US tax give an opinion on this reasoning?

A package giving Elon options like last time won't work for his 25% goal. Right now he can only vote around 13%. Not the 18% his options will get him. Those options won't become shares until 2028.

So starting a new options package will not give Elon any more voting shares for many years. With a similar scenario not until 2034.

Well give him shares then?

If they do won't the full value of the shares be taxed immediately then? Are there other reasons than the tax cost that Tesla (and I assume most other companies) always gives options and not shares?

Meaning to get from 18% to 25% giving shares would cost even more than giving the same number of options.

If the above is correct does anyone know how much more?
 
Elon has expressed great displeasure over Open AI being created as a positive contribution to the world's future, and then watching it being turned into a profit making mission goal. When pressure for profit becomes the motive, products can be pushed to market before they're proven safe, for the sake of money. That's fine with many things, but not AI, which could turn out to be extremely dangerous for humanity.

I believe Elon's main worry is that Tesla's foray into AI and robotics could be put on the express train to product profitability, above caution and safety. He's seen it happen before. He wants to have a say in it this time around.

Just my somewhat humble opinion.
It’s particularly interesting because I have a feeling there are some strong connections between OpenAI and what we’re seeing in Optimus, esp in the hands and image recognition stuff displayed in some of these Optimus videos (like the coloured cubes)

OpenAI had this Dactyl program a handful of years ago (hehe)

 
Has there been any discussion somewhere about the biggest flaw in this whole debacle?

If Elon owned 100% of Tesla and fully controlled whatever AI and robots Tesla built, exactly how would that save the world from whatever bad would happen if he didn't?

How would that protect us from the Chinese, North Koreans or for that matter any owners of companies that are in this sector?

Even assuming that Tesla gets there first. Is Elon, and so many others it seems, really thinking that no one else will ever solve this? Be it one year, three years or a decade later.

How would Elon controlling Teslas AI save the world from whatever bad Elon thinks others will do with AI?

Oh, right. Didn't think of that.

Elon should just give up then.

Carry on.

/s
 
The Bot Will Drive Future Valuation of Tesla

I've been pondering over this for a few months. We all likely came to Tesla years ago to route for the acceleration of a path to a sustainble energy future via electrified vehicles and energy products. That path is well on it's way now. We then looked excitedly at adjacent ventures, mostly robotaxis, as an exciting path to grow the company's value while aligned with greenfiying the economy.

But the path toward a software stack that is at a high enough level of fidelity to "turn on" for robotaxis nationwide may still years away. While FSD progress has been good and should improve with iterations of V12, we can't ignore the rigorous statistical nature that is required to be true robotaxi. While the FSD Beta Tracker estimates of about 100 miles / critical disengagement may be biased, we know it's not near the 10,000 miles / critical disengagement we need to get to to allow the car to work as a robotaxi. My best estimate is that the software needs to reduce interventions / disengagements by a factor of 10x at minimum, if not 100x to reach that utility.

I do believe that is achievable, but on what timeframe is less clear. I do know that I will rely more on quantitative metrics too the progress than simply listening to Youtubers alone. No bias in entries can mask a 10x improvement in rates. I am excited to see this happen over the next year or two. This can add a trillion dollars in valuation.

But what I've realized is that Tesla can deliver a subset of the eventual utility of the Bot in a much shorter time frame than we may be expecting. As I did my graduate work in modeling humanoid robotics, I am explicity attentive to how well it will learn a robust dynamic balancing policy to handle diverse environments. This is essential for allow the Bot to be used at a wide volume and scale of tasks.

But, does that even need to be achieved for a company to use the bot in a profitable manner?

Let me attempt to "skate where the puck is going".

Tesla has already illustrated a highly competent hardware package, even in the video shared yesterday.


We know even outside of Tesla, that there is an acceleration of progress on deep neural nets for learning and executing a range of manipulation tasks. These bots will be able to watch a human perform a task a series of times, then be able to generally replicate it.

When I look at the hardware and software stack, and integrate it with what Tesla's AI team will be able to execute in a year or two from now, I see the Bot being able to perform a decent variety of tasks, even if limited in locomotive capabilities.

Imagine, for instance, if the Bot was only trained to perform a set of tasks in a fast food restaurant. Identifying the types of pieces of chicken, combining the various sides as per what was ordered, and putting it into the bag and giving to the customer. The perception and dexterity capabilities are already there. The bot may not be able to perform all tasks in the restaurant, but I bet it could handle 1 out of 4 employees.

Employees are expensive. In California, minimum wage is $15 / hour, so for 12 hours a day, you will spend almost $70k per year for that work.

A company would easily pay $35k / year for a Bot to replace that human work.

There are 200,000 fast food restaurants in the U.S. alone. If they are purchased for $50k with 50% gross margins, that's 5 billion dollars in gross profit. We haven't even talked about any other works in the restaurant, let alone other jobs.

The potential profit of the Bot is simply orders of magnitude higher than robotaxis, and the threshold performance is lower for many jobs. You can have a Bot that ruins 5% of the food and still be massively profitable. A 5% hiccup in a car is unacceptable.

Given all this, it seems to be the Bot might be able to start generating revenues and profits before any robotaxi services. In fact I predict it. I believe Tesla Bot will generate a billion dollars in profits before robotaxis, and never look back.

And when this happens - maybe 2-3 years from now - the market will being valuing the future growth of that market and the numbers could be staggering - adding multiple trillions to the market cap.

"Employees are expensive. In California, minimum wage is $15 / hour, so for 12 hours a day, you will spend almost $70k per year for that work."

The cost numbers are actually worse than that (and more in favor of the bot), as I believe you forgot or underestimated the employer's share of assorted taxes, benefit costs, etc. Paid break time. Sick/vacation/holiday pay. Assorted required safety/ethics/etc. training. And more... I think for many companies, an employee actually costs 160-200% of their hourly pay rate.

Not that I think those are bad things for human workers...just that a bot won't require those extra expenses on top of the lease cost...
 
"Employees are expensive. In California, minimum wage is $15 / hour, so for 12 hours a day, you will spend almost $70k per year for that work."

The cost numbers are actually worse than that (and more in favor of the bot), as I believe you forgot or underestimated the employer's share of assorted taxes, benefit costs, etc. Paid break time. Sick/vacation/holiday pay. Assorted required safety/ethics/etc. training. And more... I think for many companies, an employee actually costs 160-200% of their hourly pay rate.

Not that I think those are bad things for human workers...just that a bot won't require those extra expenses on top of the lease cost...

Right. Once they are replaced with robots who is going to feed the economy with no income…. Smh…

You’ll have a bunch of robots ready to provide services with no one in line to purchase except the Rich….
 
This morning at work, a coworker said he laughed at all the tiktok videos of Teslas that wouldn't start in the cold.
I watched some vids and it seemed to be a bunch who did not (or were unable to) charge at home, overnight, and just expected to be able to supercharge in whatever range they had left. Well, they got caught off-guard, for sure, but I'm sure there were some traveling, but expecting to "just" make it.

Humans are terrible at estimating some things. Many just take too many chances.

No news articles about how many ran out of gas.