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

[Tachyon]

Yup. I feel like people want to avoid applying the same common sense principles to Tesla / Musk as they would elsewhere.

For instance, in many companies more slack is allowed for employees that are high performers that have been there a long time.

If I have a employee who is high performing, they can do whatever they want / however they want as long as they get their work done.

But if suddenly that works stops getting done, what happens? The reigns tighten. This is almost always the case, anywhere.

So if I was seeing an employee and the company underperforming, maybe becuase they were distracted tweeting too much, I would definitely be wanted to change their priorities.

The most ironic part is Elon himself - knowing how he operates (look at all the recent layoffs) - do you think he would have accepted the recent performance of the CEO of Tesla?

Could you imagine if Musk saw the CEO of Boring Company or Neuralink spending half their time on another company AND on a public social media platform making a bunch of tweets?

Elon Musk would have fired himself.

Couldn’t agree more .
It’s only fair to apply the Fairness doctrine to everyone equally .
Have always supported Tesla and will continue to do so , no matter who is at the helm. I came to Tesla to support the mission and will stay with and for it. Having Elon at the helm to guide the ship is a bonus and understand he will not be there forever . No one person is bigger than the mission .
I hope Elon reads this thread .

 

[DarkandStormy]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1793181025138352555

Significant price cuts in Norway.

 

[Musskiah]

Not sure why you keep beating such a factually inaccurate drum.

You can try to post graphs of longer time horizons than I was speaking of to detract from my point, it won't work. Anyone can see from the numbers I posted that you have to go back 3 years to find a higher number of shares shorted. That's the point and it's completely accurate. Toodles!

 

[mongo]

Add in how Musk uses Tesla workers to "help" his other companies which doesn't help Tesla (such as when he took over Twitter).

People volunteered after hours.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/16/elo...-want-to-be-a-ceo-walks-back-sec-insults.html

An employee already was moved to xAI

Nope, employee was leaving Tesla for OpenAI and Elon redirected them to xAI.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1775608815901454380

 

[aubreymcfato]

Elon Musk would have fired himself.

I have no doubt about that. If he wasn't the CEO and majority shareholder.... which he is, so he gave himself some slack.
But there should be no doubt that the problem has been Twitter: Musk accomplished what he did while being the CEO of SpaceX, and then BoringCo and Neuralink and for a time very active in OpenAI. He always said that he gave 1% of his time to Neuralink and 1% to BoringCo, and there were never issues.
SpaceX is more problematic, but he definitely proved the world he could do both for years. Meanwhile, he has brought both SpaceX and Tesla where they are today. So, mission accomplished.

The problem, again, was Twitter, and in general his political involvement. After 2020 things were never the same, something changed for him. Twitter was (still is?) a major distraction, the reason he had to sell so many shares, the reason he got so much pushback. It was a political move and the public and the media responded politically. Right or wrong, it was different from the past.

I'm sure 99% of shareholders would be content with part-time Musk, divided between Tesla and SpaceX, and even keeping his other pet-projects, BUT Twitter.

 

[Musskiah]

The post you quote from Papafox is from May 1.. but the same mechanisms might apply today.

You bet the same "mechanisms" (READ: manipulations) apply today

@2daMoon posted the most recent information from this post Papafox's Daily TSLA Trading Charts
As you can see feom the FINRA data "58%" in his post refers to the latest data. You just have to scroll down to the bottom from the link he gave.

 

[scaesare]

I'd also factor in efficiency. I'd be willing to bet Elon accomplishes more significant/important/critical tasks in 4 hours than many CEO's do in a couple of days.

I see you find that premise funny, @DarkandStormy...

Feel free to tell us why a guy who is running 4 companies (some of which are quite large) couldn't be more efficient with his time than some CEO's running 1?

 

[Musskiah]

In case you missed it the first time, it is FACT that TSLA is being egregiously shorted:

"Tesla is one of the most crowded stocks for short selling. Tesla ranked second in the April Hazeltree Shortside Crowdedness Report with a score of 97 out of a possible 99. The score ranked Tesla second among all large-cap stocks. with a perfect score of 99."

Tesla Loses Most-Crowded Short Stock Crown To This Oil Giant - Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA)​

An oil stock takes over from Tesla as the most crowded shorted stock in a new monthly report.
www.google.com

 

[alexxs88]

Yup. I feel like people want to avoid applying the same common sense principles to Tesla / Musk as they would elsewhere.

Agreed, but I think there's a good reason for it. The perception is that Musk has achieved incredible things so far with his businesses and, as a consequence, it's worth allowing him his freedom as it should mean more of the same thing. The fact that he's one of the richest people in the world means both further validation to the previous point as well as people not understanding what drives him, thus being more inclined to offer him what he's asking for.

As to his achievements, it can be argued that FSD is some steps away in difficulty from either landing rockets on barges or building EVs profitably. The former is impressive, but there was virtually nobody else attempting it as there was no money in doing so - without all the other SpaceX business around it. The EV situation is similar, public companies CEOs have a time-limited mandate with limited power, especially if their company is making comfortable money by keeping the status quo. I don't think any of them would've been able to get a mandate from the board to essentially destroy their company's stock price, while at the same time making no money in order to go from profitable conventional vehicles to EVs.

Autonomy is a totally different ballgame with plenty of players and a lot of money already invested into it. So this is one of the races that Tesla/Musk are doing along other competitors and you can't say they are clear winners so far. Which is to be expected, come to think about it, there's no reason for one multibillion dollar company to severely outperform the rest, especially as they're recruiting from the same talent pool.

 

[Todd Burch]

I think a lot of companies also have wording where you actually can't work at multiple companies in the employment contract at the same time unless it's disclosed. Add in how Musk uses Tesla workers to "help" his other companies which doesn't help Tesla (such as when he took over Twitter).

You are aware that Elon's other companies "help" Tesla immensely too, right? It's not just a one-way street.

Examples:
-Cybertruck's cold-rolled stainless steel 30x alloy originated at SpaceX
-SpaceX helps with a lot of materials science tasks for Tesla. They trade people and knowledge frequently. I believe development of a Tesla high power inverter from years ago involved input from some folks on the SpaceX materials team.
-Thrusters on upcoming "SpaceX" edition Roadster
-Tons of things I'm definitely forgetting that others can remind me of.

There have even been Tesla videos where they vocally highlight the sharing of knowledge and employees between Tesla and SpaceX.

 

[Musskiah]

It is as if those straws might be just out of reach. Keep grasping for them, nonetheless. I'm sure you will find something else to twirl with alacrity in order to support your desired level of confirmation bias.

Have you ever considered joining a circus to perform this spinning act under the big top? It could be a hit, running between the clowns and the trapeze acts.

 

[DarkandStormy]

"Tesla's semi trucks have achieved an uptime of greater than 95%, including preventive and unscheduled maintenance." This is the key factor that will drive Tesla Semi adoption. Of all of it's many advantages (safety, acceleration, maneuverability, etc): industry-leading uptime translates into higher margins. It is a moat that ICE semis will never step to. The second most significant factor is fuel savings - can't compete against saving dollhairs.

Do you have a source for "industry-leading uptime?"

 

[sunwarriors]

I have no doubt about that. If he wasn't the CEO and majority shareholder.... which he is, so he gave himself some slack.
But there should be no doubt that the problem has been Twitter: Musk accomplished what he did while being the CEO of SpaceX, and then BoringCo and Neuralink and for a time very active in OpenAI. He always said that he gave 1% of his time to Neuralink and 1% to BoringCo, and there were never issues.
SpaceX is more problematic, but he definitely proved the world he could do both for years. Meanwhile, he has brought both SpaceX and Tesla where they are today. So, mission accomplished.

The problem, again, was Twitter, and in general his political involvement. After 2020 things were never the same, something changed for him. Twitter was (still is?) a major distraction, the reason he had to sell so many shares, the reason he got so much pushback. It was a political move and the public and the media responded politically. Right or wrong, it was different from the past.

I'm sure 99% of shareholders would be content with part-time Musk, divided between Tesla and SpaceX, and even keeping his other pet-projects, BUT Twitter.

The problem is things are not going great right now so there is reason to question the CEO since the buck ultimately stops with him. As mentioned, no other company would've probably put up with a CEO doing so many dual roles. Dorsey with Twitter/Square comes to mind with 2 CEO titles, but very very few CEOs have multiple CEO roles in general.

When things are going great, sorta like how a rising tide lifts all boats, there is no reason to do layoffs, go in demon mode, force workers to do 80 hour weeks, etc if things are going chipper. This goes into the heart whether Elon is the right person for Tesla now, outside of startup/small mode (and I still feel Tesla is not a startup anymore, it's simply too big/valuation too large to keep "startup" people anymore, hence why some AI folks left/leave).

I doubt morale is down, low, or any CEO complaints are at Nvidia (it has a 97% approval on Glassdoor vs. 64% of Musk). Wall Street/stock is ALL about what are you going to do for me, not what have you done for me.

No one would care or question Musk/the CEO if the stock was hitting daily ATHs now. Even Bob Iger is having trouble at Disney due to stock performance. I still feel Tesla today is not the Tesla of 2018. SpaceX had Gwynne Shotwell. I've read articles on how that place is ran and Tesla doesn't seem to have someone like a Shotwell at this point. Maybe Zhu, but he's back in China to deal with the EV war there.

 

[Knightshade]

You can try to post graphs of longer time horizons than I was speaking of to detract from my point, it won't work

I'm sorry facts and long term data- in a long term investor thread- do not work for you.

Perhaps another thread might suit you better?

. Anyone can see from the numbers I posted that you have to go back 3 years to find a higher number of shares shorted. That's the point and it's completely accurate. Toodles!

That isn't a point, it's an observation.

A point would tell us why and in what way that makes any difference, given that "3 year high" is still very very low by historical standards and only barely higher than it was 3 years ago...and MUCH lower than it was for the 10+ years before it.

If Tesla was able to grow massively (and TSLA as well) when short interest was ~25% of float-- why would it being "ALL THE WAY UP TO HIGH THREE PERCENT!!!" matter-- at all?

Simply citing a narrow stat out of context is the same trash "point" that the Q folks try and make with "Tesla sales down massively in country X during period Y"

 

[Musskiah]

I'm sorry facts and long term data- in a long term investor thread- do not work for you.

Perhaps another thread might suit you better?




That isn't a point, it's an observation.

A point would tell us why and in what way that makes any difference, given that "3 year high" is still very very low by historical standards and only barely higher than it was 3 years ago...and MUCH lower than it was for the 10+ years before it.

If Tesla was able to grow massively (and TSLA as well) when short interest was ~25% of float-- why would it being "ALL THE WAY UP TO HIGH THREE PERCENT!!!" matter-- at all?

Ok

 

[alexxs88]

A point would tell us why and in what way that makes any difference, given that "3 year high" is still very very low by historical standards and only barely higher than it was 3 years ago...and MUCH lower than it was for the 10+ years before it.

There's no logic to the argument against short selling. If Tesla would be posting results suitable (or better) for its stock price, short selling would be really low. Short seller interest can be used as a proxy of how the market views the perspectives of the company, but not as a justification for declining stock price, it's nonsensical. The short interest increases as a CONSEQUENCE of bad company performance.

 

[philw1776]

<snip>
I'm sure 99% of shareholders would be content with part-time Musk, divided between Tesla and SpaceX, and even keeping his other pet-projects, BUT Twitter.

A majority likely yes, but nowhere even 90%. I for one am very thankful for his purchase of the unmentionable company.

 

[FastEddieB]

Certainly I think most people would be shocked to think it takes longer than a few hours to do it all.

We recently bought a used Toyota Tundra from a local dealer. Saw it online and just wanted to check it out. Drove home with it about 90 minutes after the test drive. We were in our 2011 Ford Flex with transmission issues, and got a reasonable amount in trade for its condition. No financing involved, they trusted our brokerage check, and Progressive has a grace period on a new vehicle.

Pretty painless overall, but as usual had to be quite firm turning down any extended warranty!

 

[dl003]

In case you missed it the first time, it is FACT that TSLA is being egregiously shorted:

"Tesla is one of the most crowded stocks for short selling. Tesla ranked second in the April Hazeltree Shortside Crowdedness Report with a score of 97 out of a possible 99. The score ranked Tesla second among all large-cap stocks. with a perfect score of 99."

Tesla Loses Most-Crowded Short Stock Crown To This Oil Giant - Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA)​

An oil stock takes over from Tesla as the most crowded shorted stock in a new monthly report.
www.google.com

TSLA has always, ALWAYS, been in the top 3 most shorted stocks for as long as I can remember, since 2019. Doesn't say much.

 

[DarkandStormy]

TSLA has always, ALWAYS, been in the top 3 most shorted stocks for as long as I can remember, since 2019. Doesn't say much.

As a % of its float it's not in the top 50.