Never underestimate hype in keeping stuff alive, and absolutely never underestimate the willingness of government to save companies that should go under.
I don’t much care for Keynes, but as I’ve gotten older, the “wild animal spirits” makes more sense as markets are seemingly never rational. Even when they are, the government now likes to “bail out” companies that the market has said ought fall.
For Musk, be he one thing or another, he has been a political animal from the start. He chose sectors where government money was available, where politicians could gain credibility with the public by supporting his companies (electric cars, solar, space), and he consistently got the hype running high enough to provide radical over-valuations. When the political winds began to shift, so did he. He immediately pivoted to position himself no-longer as center-left, but somewhere right-of-center when the majority of the USA went that direction. The primary issue with this is that to the US right… electric cars and solar aren’t too interesting, and space while admirable isn’t a priority.
I think that any prognostication on the death of Tesla is a bit hasty, but Musk’s usual strategy is certainly in question.
> absolutely never underestimate the willingness of government to save companies that should go under
This is my biggest worry. As Musk is now basically part of the government, I wouldn't be surprised for Tesla to be deemed 'of strategic importance' and bailed out by the taxpayer. It's compatible with the privatized profits - socialized losses policy we've all been accustomed to.
I struggle to understand what is Musk's endgame here. 95% of Tesla's client base is (was) upper-middle class liberal/left leaning professionals. He spent the last 4 years relentlessly trolling and ostracizing these people, and then seemingly went full loony with nazi salutes, re-tweeting far right accounts on X and to top it all off he endorsed the far right political parties in Europe, which really pushed the nail into the coffin.
The US admin who was championed by Musk wasted no time to cancel EV subsidies and investments into charging infrastructure and is currently pushing "beautiful, clean coal".
This seems like the most braindead, schizophrenic, and short-sighted set of blunders I've seen in my life. A child would've been able to predict what is going to happen. So I'm really stumped. He cannot be this stupid, surely? He cannot be this ignorant of the impact of his own actions? Is he really so deep in an echo chamber that he thought the Tesla gravy train will just keep going?
Tesla as a brand is basically dead in Europe - one of his biggest markets. There's no salvaging this. No comeback that he can engineer.
Maybe he saves his bacon in the US by enough government money grift to keep Tesla alive, but he'd have to do a ridiculous amount of it to keep the dream of >100 PE ratio valuation going.
At this point I'm largely surprised the Cybertruck didn't come with an accessory that allows you to roll coal from a separate diesel tank.
But I really agree, it feels like a guy with investments in solar and EVs could have got more out of working with the party that want to invest more in both of those instead of eliminating both of them. I guess when you reach a certain amount of money (combined with drug abuse) your incentives become hard to understand.
Twitter has algorithmically overfed his narcissism and sociopathy to the point where’s he’s detached from reality, and no amount of “smart” can get him out of this hole.
This article starts ok but then it just becomes a rant against Musk that does not make a lot of sense.
>SpaceX isn’t doing so well either, with Starlink being far from breaking even and Starship being a total mess.
I agree Tesla is pretty much a shitcoin but that bit about SpaceX is just not true. The author very clearly wants Musk to fail, for whatever reason, and in doing so loses all objectivity.
It‘s so sad that this happens all the time. People have valid arguments based on facts and then continue to tell stories based on their opinions and values.
It's much better to buy Puts (limited downside). The problem with buying them now is that you're way too late. By now the premiums are quite high, even for huge declines. If you bought a few batches at different strike prices expiring 2026 in 2021 you would be sitting on some serious profit now.
I realized that the stock market has a lot of gambling aspects for a handful of companies.
Tesla is/was hyped up and everyone said "but its not just a car company". But okay the Tesla Solar stuff is available for ages by now, the robot can't be bought yet and the first chinese companies sell them at 30k (i always assumed the first would hit the market with 100k and more) and from a robot taxi perspective, there are so many other companies doing it already...
Add 1 + 1 + 1 and you do not get the valuation of what tesla is valuated at all.
And then Musk. Holy shit Musk. The borring company was braindead and showed a very clear very ungenius brain fart. His way of selling but not deliverying is now omnipresent.
And his election interfering in usa and eu will catch up with him as everything else will.
the intuition behind boring company was that traffic could go faster in dedicated pipes.
it's actually the right company for the wrong reasons. there are more important reasons traffic should go underground. car roads are sewers; noisy, polluting, stink. any city will benefit when cars are removed from the surface.
for that reasons alone, from all his companies, i hope boring company would succeed the most.
Yeah the boring company doesn't seem a bad gamble to me even if it doesn't work out. They've even got a new project lined up doing a Dubai loop similar to the Las Vegas one.
It's the pivot to nazi salutes etc. that seems nuts.
You do understand that underground traffic already exists and is called public transportaion or sometimes more specifically like ubahn etc.?
The idea in itself is not new, the idea of him is to put cars under it in a very narrow tunnel because the narrower the cheaper.
And now comes the magic stupidity or ignorance of him: There is ar eason why tunnels and our underground looks like it does: Water (rain), Water (ground water), air (oxygen, co2) and emergencies need to be countet for.
There is a reason why he still doesn't reach the speed or anything he ever promised on it and there is a reason why 12 years later there is nothing of significance to be seen anywhere.
Btw. we could just use transportation technology like in star trek.
Couldn't have happened to a bigger dickhead founder, honestly. Elon's cult of personality has finally popped.
I've never seen such a massive waste of potential and reputation as that dude went through in the last few years. Was it the drugs? Lack of self-confidence? Just fundamental incompatibility with fame?
Readit News
I don’t much care for Keynes, but as I’ve gotten older, the “wild animal spirits” makes more sense as markets are seemingly never rational. Even when they are, the government now likes to “bail out” companies that the market has said ought fall.
For Musk, be he one thing or another, he has been a political animal from the start. He chose sectors where government money was available, where politicians could gain credibility with the public by supporting his companies (electric cars, solar, space), and he consistently got the hype running high enough to provide radical over-valuations. When the political winds began to shift, so did he. He immediately pivoted to position himself no-longer as center-left, but somewhere right-of-center when the majority of the USA went that direction. The primary issue with this is that to the US right… electric cars and solar aren’t too interesting, and space while admirable isn’t a priority.
I think that any prognostication on the death of Tesla is a bit hasty, but Musk’s usual strategy is certainly in question.
This is my biggest worry. As Musk is now basically part of the government, I wouldn't be surprised for Tesla to be deemed 'of strategic importance' and bailed out by the taxpayer. It's compatible with the privatized profits - socialized losses policy we've all been accustomed to.
The US admin who was championed by Musk wasted no time to cancel EV subsidies and investments into charging infrastructure and is currently pushing "beautiful, clean coal".
This seems like the most braindead, schizophrenic, and short-sighted set of blunders I've seen in my life. A child would've been able to predict what is going to happen. So I'm really stumped. He cannot be this stupid, surely? He cannot be this ignorant of the impact of his own actions? Is he really so deep in an echo chamber that he thought the Tesla gravy train will just keep going?
Tesla as a brand is basically dead in Europe - one of his biggest markets. There's no salvaging this. No comeback that he can engineer.
Maybe he saves his bacon in the US by enough government money grift to keep Tesla alive, but he'd have to do a ridiculous amount of it to keep the dream of >100 PE ratio valuation going.
But I really agree, it feels like a guy with investments in solar and EVs could have got more out of working with the party that want to invest more in both of those instead of eliminating both of them. I guess when you reach a certain amount of money (combined with drug abuse) your incentives become hard to understand.
Twitter has algorithmically overfed his narcissism and sociopathy to the point where’s he’s detached from reality, and no amount of “smart” can get him out of this hole.
Shitty cities filled with crime and weirdos after your kids will do that to you.
>SpaceX isn’t doing so well either, with Starlink being far from breaking even and Starship being a total mess.
I agree Tesla is pretty much a shitcoin but that bit about SpaceX is just not true. The author very clearly wants Musk to fail, for whatever reason, and in doing so loses all objectivity.
Deleted Comment
Would love some analysis on the numbers in this post. On the whole, do they have legs?
As a retail investor, I strongly advise against shorting. Can you make money? Yes. Is the game stacked and rigged against you? Also yes.
The best thing to do is redeem TSLA holdings and put them in other companies (or better yet, into a broad based index).
(not investing advice)
Tesla is/was hyped up and everyone said "but its not just a car company". But okay the Tesla Solar stuff is available for ages by now, the robot can't be bought yet and the first chinese companies sell them at 30k (i always assumed the first would hit the market with 100k and more) and from a robot taxi perspective, there are so many other companies doing it already...
Add 1 + 1 + 1 and you do not get the valuation of what tesla is valuated at all.
And then Musk. Holy shit Musk. The borring company was braindead and showed a very clear very ungenius brain fart. His way of selling but not deliverying is now omnipresent.
And his election interfering in usa and eu will catch up with him as everything else will.
it's actually the right company for the wrong reasons. there are more important reasons traffic should go underground. car roads are sewers; noisy, polluting, stink. any city will benefit when cars are removed from the surface.
for that reasons alone, from all his companies, i hope boring company would succeed the most.
It's the pivot to nazi salutes etc. that seems nuts.
The idea in itself is not new, the idea of him is to put cars under it in a very narrow tunnel because the narrower the cheaper.
And now comes the magic stupidity or ignorance of him: There is ar eason why tunnels and our underground looks like it does: Water (rain), Water (ground water), air (oxygen, co2) and emergencies need to be countet for.
There is a reason why he still doesn't reach the speed or anything he ever promised on it and there is a reason why 12 years later there is nothing of significance to be seen anywhere.
Btw. we could just use transportation technology like in star trek.
- people that bought it once
- people that bought it never
I've never seen such a massive waste of potential and reputation as that dude went through in the last few years. Was it the drugs? Lack of self-confidence? Just fundamental incompatibility with fame?