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Split Thread Musk, SpaceX and future of Tesla

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dudalb said:
Yeah, Musk seems headed to Howard Hughes in his last years territory. territory
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I feel like that's the most optimistic outcome. Hughes had some real medical issues that contributed to his odd behavior (allodynia in particular, resulting from numerous injuries from airplane crashes, he might also have had syphilis).
He would sit naked in his bedroom with a pink hotel napkin placed over his genitals, watching movies. This may have been because Hughes found the touch of clothing painful due to allodynia. He may have watched movies to distract himself from his pain—a common practice among patients with intractable pain, especially those who do not receive adequate treatment.
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John McAfee may be a better analogue. His issues seemed all self-induced by drug use and megalomania.
 
I did a quick check and found the Phil Mason did a video about Tesla, and Elon Musk, of course.



I was rather surprised at how brutal the 2024 August 15 firings were at the three minute mark.

It's less than a year since I put up a video saying Elon Musk would be bankrupt in 5 years. Musk apparently saw that and said, "Hold my ketamine... I can speed run that in three."


27 minutes in...

Look Musk is kind of right that Tesla as a car company is essentially worthless and as a tech company without any actual tech, it's essentially worthless. Now as a company claiming it's going to change the world with tech next year, it has some scam value that only lasts as long as people are comitted to the lie. And Musk has been telling the same lie now for a decade. At some point people are just going to realize that the only thing Musk has to offer is promising revolution next year.


Interesting graph at 30:30 mark.

"And with the markets finally waking up to the, "Honestly, I swear, It'll be ready next year." Looks like this will come to a head in less than three years. Possibly much quicker if the rats suddenly decide that the only thing that's been keeping the sinking ship afloat so far is flase hope."

And what with Mush's wealth being overwhelmingly tied up in Tesla stock, having blow the 40 or so billion he cashed out of Tesla to buy Twitter. And Twitter now has a vlauation comparable to the 10 billion he borrowed to buy it making Twitter effectively worthless. When Tesla which is already soaked in red ink crashes, it will likely take every other oversold Musk vaporware company with it. Might be the only time Musk has ever delivered anything ahead of schedule.
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He basically thinks the robotaxies are a pump and dump scheme. I guess Elon will have no choice but to roll them out at the annual shareholders meeting, maybe not in a working condition, but show something to get the share price above $400 again to justify his bonus.

Interesting factoids in the video. Tesa sold 5 million vehicles so far and has made a total profit of $25 billion. Car sales have stalled out at 1% of the global car market.


P. S. Why the hell are December 2026 $125 puts selling for $25 a piece?
I can see paying $0.25, or maybe $0.50 if I feel extravigant, for one. But $25?
 
Solitaire said:
I did a quick check and found the Phil Mason did a video about Tesla, and Elon Musk, of course.



I was rather surprised at how brutal the 2024 August 15 firings were at the three minute mark.




He basically thinks the robotaxies are a pump and dump scheme. I guess Elon will have no choice but to roll them out at the annual shareholders meeting, maybe not in a working condition, but show something to get the share price above $400 again to justify his bonus.

Interesting factoids in the video. Tesa sold 5 million vehicles so far and has made a total profit of $25 billion. Car sales have stalled out at 1% of the global car market.


P. S. Why the hell are December 2026 $125 puts selling for $25 a piece?
I can see paying $0.25, or maybe $0.50 if I feel extravigant, for one. But $25?
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Anybody with a basick knowledge of supply and demand will understand that the robotaxi sales pitch was never going to be a viable economic plan. There is roughly 300,000 taxis in the US currently, many of which are running at a loss (Uber and other "ride share" companies especially). Flooding that market with 1-2 million more vehicles looking for fares is just going to collapse the ecosystem. Plus you've the problem of the fact that the times you need your car are very likely going to also be the times when other people will want your "car as taxi" (the same problem that means the promises of traffic reduction made by car sharing/rental companies to reduce car usage by volume are never going to pan out).
 
Gulliver Foyle said:
Anybody with a basick knowledge of supply and demand will understand that the robotaxi sales pitch was never going to be a viable economic plan. There is roughly 300,000 taxis in the US currently, many of which are running at a loss (Uber and other "ride share" companies especially). Flooding that market with 1-2 million more vehicles looking for fares is just going to collapse the ecosystem. Plus you've the problem of the fact that the times you need your car are very likely going to also be the times when other people will want your "car as taxi" (the same problem that means the promises of traffic reduction made by car sharing/rental companies to reduce car usage by volume are never going to pan out).
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I wouldn't worry too much about the economics at this stage. Full Self Driving is absolutely nowhere near. What nobody seems to be remembering is that it is no good if FSD only requires intervention from the driver, say once a week, that's quite impressive for assisted driving, but it is catastrophic for a robotaxi with no driver.

I'd say it will be a minimum of five years before FSD is good enough.

Then they still have to fix the social problems. Your car may arrive at your office to take you home with the seats covered in trash, or vomit. Robotaxi is many years away and, as you say, won't make anybody any money, except maybe Elon Musk.
 
Doug DeMuro has done a good in depth review and drive of the Cybertruck.

I'm quite impressed.

 
a_unique_person said:
The socialist in me doesn't understand any of that. Could you please spell it out? :blush:
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It's contract where I pay a guy for the right to receive the difference at a contracted price for a limited time. Yeah. It sound complicated, but it's like betting with a fix cost and variable return.

In the case of Tesla I pay $25 per share for the right to sell 100 shares at the $125 strike price. If the stock falls to $75 per share and I exercise the option, the guy will pay me the difference, $50 a share, or $5000 total for the 100 shares option. On the other hand, if Tesla shares stay above $125 a share, I receive nothing.

In contrast, Coca Cola options at a similar 60% off current market price are only about a quarter a piece.
 
Solitaire said:
It's contract where I pay a guy for the right to receive the difference at a contracted price for a limited time. Yeah. It sound complicated, but it's like betting with a fix cost and variable return.



In the case of Tesla I pay $25 per share for the right to sell 100 shares at the $125 strike price. If the stock falls to $75 per share and I exercise the option, the guy will pay me the difference, $50 a share, or $5000 total for the 100 shares option. On the other hand, if Tesla shares stay above $125 a share, I receive nothing.



In contrast, Coca Cola options at a similar 60% off current market price are only about a quarter a piece.
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I'm afraid that didn't help at all, [emoji53]. I really don't get the abstractions of share trading. Going short is about my limit. [emoji15]
 
a_unique_person said:
I'm afraid that didn't help at all, [emoji53]. I really don't get the abstractions of share trading. Going short is about my limit. [emoji15]
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It's a contract that gives you the right to sell some shares at a specific price at a later date.

So we could have a contract that says I have the right (but not the obligation) to sell you 100 Tesla shares at $125 in (or possibly before?) December 26.

When December 26 comes around, if I choose to sell you those Tesla shares you have to buy them at $125 regardless of what the actual share price is when I sell them. So, if Tesla shares are trading at, say $75, it's a good deal for me (and bad for you). If they are trading at more than $125, I would probably choose not to sell them to you. After all, I could sell them to somebody else for more than $125.

So, you may ask, why would you enter into such a one sided deal? Well the reason is that, when we set up the contract, I pay you some money. In this case, $25 per share. So, if I choose not to exercise my right to sell you the shares, you walk away with $2,500 clear profit. If I do choose to sell you the shares, you get the 100 shares plus the $2,500 minus the $12,500 that it cost you to buy the shares off me. I get $10,000 ($12,500 minus $2,500) but I'm also 100 shares down. If I bought them at $100, I have broken even. If I bought them at $75, I've made, $2,500 in profit.
 
I think it was back in the 1980’s that I toyed with options*. I made some money on my first foray, lost some money on a couple thereafter.

Options do have a place in the “investment” world. But they run counter to my overall investment philosophy - that, in the short run, price movements are unpredictable - if not random for all practical purposes. We can bicker on what is and is not “gambling”** but betting on short term price fluctuations sure fits that definition for me. As does “day trading”.


*I think I made a profit on “Ford July 40’s” when the price moved in a favorable direction. It leveraged up what I might have made buying the actual stock in the same time frame.

**If one posits that “everything in life is a gamble”, it renders the word meaningless.
 
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Fast Eddie B said:
Options do have a place in the “investment” world. But they run counter to my overall investment philosophy - that, in the short run, price movements are unpredictable - if not random for all practical purposes. We can bicker on what is and is not “gambling”** but betting on short term price fluctuations sure fits that definition for me. As does “day trading”.
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I concur with that advice. But the point, in the context of this thread, is that investors as a group (or more specifically, investors willing to engage in this particular variety of risky options trading) have set the current market price of a wager that:

- breaks even if the price of Tesla shares in December 2026 is around $100
- pays about 1 to 1 if the price of Tesla shares in December 2026 is around $75
- pays about 2 to 1 if the price of Tesla shares in December 2026 is around $50
- pays about 3 to 1 if the price of Tesla shares in December 2026 is around $25
- pays about 4 to 1 if Tesla shares in December 2026 are close to worthless
...and they've set the market price of that wager at $25.

That expresses a collective opinion that there's about a 50-50 chance that Tesla shares will be below half their current price by then. If one believes markets (and this particular market) arrive at some kind of collective wisdom, that's worrisome news for Tesla. However, one could also make a good case that the price in this particular case means nothing at all.
 
An open letter from a Tesla engineer, as to why he left Tesla:

Ethan Heald, public post on LinkedIn:

"[Edit: I have recieved more than a few texts from people supporting my sentiment but not commenting publicly out of fear of professional retaliation. Really goes to show how unhealthy of a work environment they’ve created, and underlines the importance of speaking out if you are in a position to do so.]

My heart goes out to my former coworkers affected by the #TeslaLayoffs.

~20,000 employees have lost their jobs with no warning; many are here in the US on a work visa or are new parents that will lose their family’s health insurance. Meanwhile, Musk asks the shareholders for a $56,000,000,000 stock package.

I had a wild, fun, stressful, and mind-boggling four years at Tesla. I watched the company morph from a California-based electric car and solar panel start-up, owned by an innovative genius, to a Texas-based manufacturing and robotics conglomerate, (set to displace thousands of jobs) owned by right-wing internet troll.

While I am incredibly thankful to my immediate team for the opportunity and wealth of knowledge they provided me, I will not miss that job. The company is (from what I could gather as a low-level engineer) horrendously mismanaged at the top. Elon is a petty tyrant and constantly keeps everyone understaffed. He would do things like have the Lucky Charms removed from the coffee bar if we had a down quarter. The company was worth around $1,000,000,000,000 at the time.

Elon’s heel turn was especially hard to watch, because to me, he and Tesla were once such a source of inspiration and hope. The initial shenanigans could be brushed off as funny quirks. The breaking point for me was when he canceled merit awards on the same work day he spent live-streaming the “migrant crisis” at the southern border on Twitter.

I have come to accept this reality, but I still regularly see people in denial.

• The stock is down 30% YTD, down 44% from peak, on his watch.

• Cybertruck was misguided from its conception. No doubt it is a step forward for automotive aesthetic design, but it doesn’t work when the guy presenting it makes a fool of himself publicly on a daily basis.

• Over-promising wildly on CT specs and FSD timelines. Sending company wide emails that served no purpose other than to leak and pump the stock.

• Removing parking sensors prematurely. I did not meet single person inside or outside the company that thought this was a good idea.

• Buying an unrelated company and devoting the work day to fix that blunder at the expense of Tesla operations and reputation

• Many other baffling decisions that made me question what the point of an executive team and board is if they are going to just let him do whatever he wants. I understand self-preservation but at a certain point it’s just spineless.

While the board recommends voting to give him $56B and re-elect his brother and Roman Roy as directors, I recommend against it. He is the only person that deserved to be laid off."
 
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Fast Eddie B said:
An open letter from a Tesla engineer, as to why he left Tesla:

Ethan Heald, public post on LinkedIn:

"[Edit: I have recieved more than a few texts from people supporting my sentiment but not commenting publicly out of fear of professional retaliation. Really goes to show how unhealthy of a work environment they’ve created, and underlines the importance of speaking out if you are in a position to do so.]

My heart goes out to my former coworkers affected by the #TeslaLayoffs.

~20,000 employees have lost their jobs with no warning; many are here in the US on a work visa or are new parents that will lose their family’s health insurance. Meanwhile, Musk asks the shareholders for a $56,000,000,000 stock package.

I had a wild, fun, stressful, and mind-boggling four years at Tesla. I watched the company morph from a California-based electric car and solar panel start-up, owned by an innovative genius, to a Texas-based manufacturing and robotics conglomerate, (set to displace thousands of jobs) owned by right-wing internet troll.

While I am incredibly thankful to my immediate team for the opportunity and wealth of knowledge they provided me, I will not miss that job. The company is (from what I could gather as a low-level engineer) horrendously mismanaged at the top. Elon is a petty tyrant and constantly keeps everyone understaffed. He would do things like have the Lucky Charms removed from the coffee bar if we had a down quarter. The company was worth around $1,000,000,000,000 at the time.

Elon’s heel turn was especially hard to watch, because to me, he and Tesla were once such a source of inspiration and hope. The initial shenanigans could be brushed off as funny quirks. The breaking point for me was when he canceled merit awards on the same work day he spent live-streaming the “migrant crisis” at the southern border on Twitter.

I have come to accept this reality, but I still regularly see people in denial.

• The stock is down 30% YTD, down 44% from peak, on his watch.

• Cybertruck was misguided from its conception. No doubt it is a step forward for automotive aesthetic design, but it doesn’t work when the guy presenting it makes a fool of himself publicly on a daily basis.

• Over-promising wildly on CT specs and FSD timelines. Sending company wide emails that served no purpose other than to leak and pump the stock.

• Removing parking sensors prematurely. I did not meet single person inside or outside the company that thought this was a good idea.

• Buying an unrelated company and devoting the work day to fix that blunder at the expense of Tesla operations and reputation

• Many other baffling decisions that made me question what the point of an executive team and board is if they are going to just let him do whatever he wants. I understand self-preservation but at a certain point it’s just spineless.

While the board recommends voting to give him $56B and re-elect his brother and Roman Roy as directors, I recommend against it. He is the only person that deserved to be laid off."
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I looked up the post on Linked-In and just to clarify the context: Ethan Heald was not one of the people laid off, he resigned because of what was going on with Cybertruck.
 
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