Are you that guy that watches my weeny when I pee, stuff like that worries me. Told you years ago DOW 15,000 was very likely, most recently DOW 25,000 in a few short months was more than a possibility. I'd let you sit on my knee but quit watching me pee. Don't you see it's weird to me.
I haven't said much about Elon's state of mind but I will opine now. Elon is clearly bipolar and has periods of instability. This is troubling, for a CEO. While those predisposed to dislike Elon will point to this as a reason everything he touches is about to fail, it's nothing new and the folks throwing shade on him have specialized in being wrong for nearly a decade. Things could be different now, for some reason, but I don't see why they would be. Even Twitter is probably going to be OK, long term. While Elon has made some missteps and will make more in the future, a quick look at the three majors shows us how gross incompetence can manifest itself. Stellantis CEO has basically said they cannot make the jump to electrification. GM has demonstrated incompetence on so many levels I am embarrassed for Mary Barra. Ford pretended self driving didn't exist, for a long while, and did very little on electrification until recently. Is Tesla disadvantaged by Elon? Would Tesla be better off with Mary Barra, Jim Farley, or Carlos Taveres? Gotta say, I'll take Elon. Tesla has said they have a CEO in mind if Elon should cease to be available for the role. I sincerely hope the backup is JB Straubel but I don't know if he would return. I think the most likely second would be Zachary Kirkhorn. Tesla shareholders should consider Elon a risk vector. If Elon leaves, the company will take a big hit, regardless of how good of a job his replacement does. That is one of the things that weighs on me with Tesla. It doesn't keep me from owning Tesla, though. I still believe in the company, Elon, and an EV future. I just don't think it's worth an infinite price.
I agree with the bulk of this, maybe not the Twitter part though. Not sure about it's long-term life at this point. When it comes to TSLA though, pointing out how bad he's mishandled Twitter does not change my opinion of Tesla. They are still the market leader in electrification and will be a tough hurdle for any company to overcome, even as a whole industry to overcome Tesla's lead. I do have a comment leading into a question on the highlighted part though. Thinking he's making lots of mistakes now in his demeanor and business decisions over the last year or two (especially the twitter purchase and how he's handled it) does not detract from the businesses he built. Obviously he did a ton right for vehicle electrification, building successful companies, etc. Nobody can take that from him. Past success though does not make one infallible and does not mean they can't go off the rails in the present/future. My question to you as an extremely long-time follower of him and his business, bigtime investor in the company for a long time, and somebody who still very closely follows the company (and maybe him?), as a shareholder/potential shareholder, would you still want Elon running Tesla? Obviously the market reaction will be short-term negative. As a long-term investor though, if you were to still be in or wanting to get in, are you more comfortable with Elon running the show, or Straubel for example? Shareholders aren't always right, and me from the sideline, if I was planning to hold for another 10 years, I'd want Elon out the door ASAP to generate me the biggest gains in TESLA over the next 10 years. Thank you for starting this great company and all you've done for it has been great to this point, but someone else with their focus purely on Tesla would do a better job for me over the next 10 years.
It's humbling and somewhat of a honor knowing my fan boy follows me, hopefully not to the restroom. Moving forward, I'm waiting for the numbers to fall in my range based on Cathy's most recent purchase. Sooner rather than later is not a issue. Watching the tweeter show unfold is like takin a trip and never leaving the couch. The simple pleasures in life can be very entertaining.
Kinda weird thoughts coming from a boozer. Your antics are lame, a real snoozer. Don't you have anything else to do, you loser?
I know this is starting to get a bit sidetracked in this thread which I do greatly apologize to the others here in advance! But, this will be my final post on this here if I may. Maybe 'tis just me but I'm not entirely clear why it is totally necessary to keep recreating new user accounts here after every few months has passed that you take a break on this forum. I could be way off base here and it's just a suspicion of mine at best, but perhaps the reason you do this is just an attempt to cover up from your past reputation on this board of which hasn't come off too kindly tbh. Some things truly never change. But, you can't fool some of us when you come back here thinking you're not the same person. We're not stupid lel. Anyway, I'll just wrap this one up in saying that it would be kinda nice if you can actually just stick to one username in here, and not come back with an entirely new user account. I can totally understand if you needed to change accounts, but keeping the same like I had in here last year. Case in point, I'm on a new account with this one here, but that uses my OG username from back in the HSM days. Anyway, sorry if I took things a bit O/T in here. Will greatly apologies to others who are looking for some TSLA discussions. My sincere apologies truly. Nothing to see here, carry on. Thank you that is all.
Now that my fanboy s have had their moments of glory. Weeeeeeeee. Still holding 180s although it struggled, the dips are seen as opportunities for many. Like Amazon and most of the others that have wiped away a couple years of gains. We can sit back,watch the World wobble and enjoy the show.
I know this was not a question for me, but I would actually be pushing for Elon to move out of any sort of forward facing position at Tesla. He has done all he can for the company and the brand. Going forward he is more of liability than an asset.
I apologize for the slow response. I'm not at home much, these days. This difference in point of view is literally what the stock market is about. I won't declare myself correct; I am not. If we are convicted in our respective points of view, we will put in place bets to harness our point of view. So, there is no need to argue. This is my understanding: Twitter had 7500 people. The herd was culled to 3700. 1200 more left in a mass resignation. That leaves 2500. Does it take 2500 people to manage one application? I would say, probably not. It's going to come down to who left and who is there. They probably need 50 server guys and perhaps 10 application guys. These people will be essential, although a few could leave. These core people have probably not left. People who create these pieces feel ownership of them like a parent. If you've ever been on an operating system team, you realize there are about four guys who do the primary work of managing the OS and many hundreds of people who do "other stuff". Sure, you need a couple of guys to write Minesweeper but they are not critical OS guys in that you could replace them with three other guys to write Candy Crush and leave Minesweeper to rot. The guy who wrote the thread scheduler should probably be kept but even he could be tossed and the thread scheduler could go unimproved for three OS revision cycles without change and no one would notice. People think they are indispensable but almost no one is. So, I look forward to watching this thing blow up the news every day in a wonderful display of drama that cost Elon 44B and me $0. I'm not sure Elon has mishandled Twitter but I make no claims he is handling it in a great way. My position is: We will see. The problem is, Elon has set up his companies to get a ton of production out of people. Twitter is obviously a place where they have someone who takes the beans out of the bag, another person to grind them, a third to put the ground coffee into the filter, and a fourth person to pour hot water into the funnel. How do you transform a traditional micro-task corporation to an Elon style concentration camp where people work until they drop? That is a sincere question. I don't know. What I do know is that Elon did not start operating this way last week. Elon was ruthless at Tesla in 2007. They were struggling to survive and he whacked anyone who didn't want to go the extra mile to get the electrified Smart FourTwo done for Mercedes. He fired quite a few people who thought his demands were unreasonable. It didn't get the media attention at the time but it was no less draconian than what is going on at Twitter and it is the foundation Tesla is built on today. Yes. I still want Elon as CEO of Tesla. My plan was always to exit Tesla *before* Elon left. It's going to be another train wreck, although it will happen over a period of months and years at Tesla, unlike Twitter. When a more normal person steps in and they say, "Hey, let's stop killing ourselves,", That will be the end of 30% margins. If he says, "I'm going to work you as hard as Elon." he had better have a ton of charisma and be the world's second most interesting guy because getting people to follow you, as Elon has, is essentially impossible. Why would they follow him? They've been to hell and back with Elon. Elon has slept in the factory more times than anyone, including Elon, can count. That's why I think JB is the obvious next choice. Almost no one understands how hard JB Straubel has worked to build Tesla and how much respect he has generated. He is still at Tesla, in an advisory role, but not an active employee. Not sure they would be smart enough to bring him back but it's Tesla so maybe. I have a profound regard for the idea that one engaged guy can do 10 things but 20 disengaged people cannot do the same 10 things. Companies are people doing work. That will end once AI and automation take over but we are still a considerable distance from that moment. At some point, Elon will become a liability. I just don't think today is that time and I do not see that time in the near future.
I'd like to add that it would be a gross mistake to think we understand what is going on at Twitter by watching through the fun house mirror of contemporary media outlets. Elon's political views have made it impossible for this to be reported objectively. Any non-conservative media outlet is looking for any opportunity to smear Elon and do harm to his companies. Changing the mindset at Twitter is going to take a jarring action to get people to realize non-compliance isn't an option. It's not going to be something that looks pretty from the outside. Time will tell.
I look at both viewpoints and think either can be a plausible outcome. Is Elon this diamond in the rough transformative individual who can dive in and turn something into a market leader for multiple very different industries? He has a great track record of wanting to start in businesses he knows that have good growth prospects. Or has Elon finally embraced his personal viewpoints as a compass with which he bases his decisions? Would the Elon of today start Tesla in CA as the obvious choice for EV expansion? Is he as focused on his projects as he was, say 5 years ago? Time will tell, but I am not liking his entry into social media. It's a bullshit industry with very little upside. Look at how hard FB is swimming upstream to bring in new revenue. Can Elon do better?
The endless stream of negativity regarding Elon's Twitter takeover will continue but, if it turns out well, there will undoubtedly be copycat corporate takeover and blow up activity. I'm not saying the copycats will be successful. lol!
FSD v11 is in limited beta, at the moment. This looks to be half of the FSD show. As I understand it, v11 will provide FSD on highway routes but not surface streets. Still, it is a significant step forward. Tesla is making a big deal out of this being the first "single stack" release in a while. They had been using two software stacks to handle city and highway. I'm sure it's a significant software milestone but I have not mentioned it because it isn't something significant to the user community. It is clear, based on the speed of the rollout, Tesla will not have FSD, even in beta, this year. At the most, they might roll a narrow beta before the end of the year for the purpose of bragging rights but no chance they will roll full FSD wide.
Yes, timing is the big factor. Right place, right time, and enough money to make it work. Those are the three vital ingredients to his success. Boring Company? Not so much. Hyperloop? Its a dud. There are failures out there which is normal. Tesla needed two things to have a successful runway. They needed billions in local and federal government subsidies, and a big concentration of wealthy consumers that would be brave enough to adopt EVs and the whole "go green" push away from oil. There is only one place in the US that has that and its California. A left leaning local government pushing for green energy and a wealthy bunch of tech-savvy young people wanting the latest tech with the budgets to do it. I love to see Republicans cheering Musk because he is owning the libs so hard, but they don't seem to understand that at his level, its just a game he enjoys playing because when he got $6000 in tax credits from the Obama administration to encourage buyers to go buy a Tesla, or the countless subsidies from California to build out the recharging network, he sure was not owning the libs back then. He loved the left and all the crazy ideas about going green, solar and wind. Musk will happily turn on the Right if it suits his agenda and there will be lots of surprised Pikachu faces when he does. Social media is not a tech problem. Musk can not build a better robot, automated production line or line of code to make things better. People are complicated animals as he is quickly learning. He has already sold $4B worth of Tesla and damaged his reputation beyond repair at this point. While there is no exact dollar figure we can assign, the one thing we can be sure of is that "peak Elon" happened when TSLA was at the highs and that is something no amount of money can bring back. I have a feeling Tesla will become the IBM of cars. Still a big players in the game, but not what they used to be.
Ive reduced positions over the past few months but have not shorted. Im not looking to open any new long positions, but I can see this going under $150 if the stock market keeps going this way.
Great points you bring up. Totally on the money, in my opinion. I am starting to wonder if TSLA might be going the way of AMZN sometime soon. Great company, great product, but the growth might not be there anymore, and I might be perhaps better served by dumping it into VOOG like I did with AMZN.
