This belongs in General Discussion, probably. Moving the followup ---> General Discussion: 2018 Investor Roundtable
We can certainly use fresh eyes and modelers. You may want to take a look at this thread : q2-q4 2018 financial projections where a few of us already posted some models for the upcoming quarters.
Excellent post, a small correction: So they made 28k M3's in Q2, which is a rate of 2.1k/week - in Q3 they are guiding for 50k-55k M3's, which is 3.8k-4.2k/week, i.e. not three times but about twice the (sustained) rate. (Fully agreed with all your other observations, spot on.)
Seven letters: C-O-N-T-R-O-L I would expect any further equity issuances to be like Google Class C stock
Whaddayougonnado? There's this traditional proverb that comes to mind: When Elon gives you lemons you squeeze them in to lemonade Kool-aid.
Cornering's legal, if it's done for the purposes of gaining control (not merely to establish a price). Have to file with the SEC, but it's legal. There have been several documented bear raids on TSLA stock, particularly over July 4 weekends; the SEC has been AWOL. Note that to prove a ramping case you'd have to prove intent to raise the stock price, and I think it's pretty clear Musk's intent was to get the hell off the public markets. The fact that it didn't raise the stock price makes it even harder to make the case.
Asking those of you with better programing/system chops, do this guys criticisms seem to have merit? Also, do we have insight into the general level of satisfaction of current IT team?
Are there any hard limits in the CFIUS regulations, or is it completely discretionary? I found this: Cooley For example, the types of "transactions" that may fall within CFIUS' scope of review can include not only traditional mergers and acquisitions, but also investments in which a foreign person acquires a small minority investment in a target – in some cases as little as 10 percent or less of the outstanding voting stock in a US company. Covered transactions also can include the formation of a joint venture or even certain long-term leases. I don't like the "or less" language. But yeah, I'd argue that the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia has such good connections to the White House and Republicans in particular that it seems unlikely to make that they'd be facing too many CFIUS problems. Saudi Arabia has been sold high-tech U.S. weapons after all.
This is basically my investment thesis on Tesla. Let's face it: the company's a mess. Internal communications are completely borked; the left hand never knows what the right hand is doing. Their IT department is extremely disorganized to the point where it's seriously damaging software quality. Most of the software on the car is pirated because they never bothered to check the terms of the open-source licenses. Their legal department is beyond terrible, managing to lose a libel case in "libel paradise" England. They aren't even able to keep track of motor vehicle registration rules in all 50 states. HR has been so badly mismanaged that bad actors are placing themselves into management and firing the decent people (yes, I think we now have enough documentation to be sure that this is happening in some departments) -- while this is pretty normal for any large corporation, it's still bad. Management seems to be so disorganized that they can't figure out where they need service centers (despite people yelling at them about it for five years). Delivery logistics seems to be quite beyond them, and customers have even been given cars of the wrong color. But where's the competition? There isn't any. I follow all of it closely, and everyone else is making *bigger* mistakes.
CFIUS can, of its own volition, review essentially anything where a foreigner buys any stock in anything in the US. But it doesn't, and it never has. There's a list of transactions for which you're strongly encouraged to *ask* CFIUS, and the threshold for that was set at 10% of stock. For smaller stuff, you don't have to talk to them, and they almost certainly won't call you.
My point is Tesla owners have the same sentiment as Jay Leno, not to buy Tesla's because Jay Leno does it. I'm fairly active in the Model 3 forums and the reactions I see are the same for those who do the test drives. "I'll buy it!" "I'll take it!"... trading in Prius and Civics if need be. Everyone wishes Elon had not sent the tweet when he did.. and wish he did not dive head first into the bears den at New York Times. What is done is done. Elon can make it up with Q3/Q4 + beyond execution. It's all us investors can hope for.
I don't think they have anything to worry about. Saudi Arabia is the largest provider of emoluments to the president and he is well aware of that.
Yeah, deliveries in Q3 are going to go up at least threefold, according to their 55k+ guidance, and indeed to profitability and cash flow that is what matters. And this isn't just bullish optimism: at this point I find it hard to see a conservative scenario where Tesla wouldn't be profitable in Q3 ...