Elon Musk texts Larry Page about investing in Tesla (2018)
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Larry has a Merlin engine in his office in building 1900 (Googleplex).
I think he's talking about a different Merlin engine, though:
Price at closing yesterday: $1,005.05
That would have been a 14x gain, in roughly 4 years. Not bad at all.
It's not adding value as at that time it would have been a gamble and not a obvious thing.
I also still don't understand Tesla share price. Sure they are more than a EV company but they still struggle with there Tesla roofs.
So why would Tesla be more worth than all car companies combined? Tesla doesn't just create a new market. They still need to replace others.
tesla is the iphone of cars. minimalist, performant, fun to drive. not to mention the no other car company is building or has a supercharging network. GM and Ford are the blackberry of EVs
Their battery tech isn't unique (and not theirs entirely either). Everything except the infotainment system is "simple" (in relative terms).
I'm not saying they're not great, but that the stock is expensive
My point was that people don't buy BMW over Mercedes because they have 20 more horsepower. And if it does come down to brand, as you said, there are a lot of very powerful brands, like BMW or Mercedes that have been playing the brand game longer than the founder of Tesla has been alive. I don't think I would put my money on Tesla if winning will come down to brand.
The differentiating factor for Tesla has never been their battery tech or physical car quality. It's somewhat like Apple in that the combination of decent (but not the best) hardware and software brought together in a cohesive way creates something better than the individual parts. You're buying an "experience", which people often make fun of but ultimately I feel is more representative of what customers are looking for than looking at pure specs of the car. And a lot of the "experience" is powered by software or by custom silicon or other non-car things.
Android still can't compete with Apple in terms of the polish and cohesiveness of the product despite Google and Samsung being juggernauts, and I think Tesla vs. Ford/GM/etc. is much the same. Just pick up a Galaxy S22 and use it for a bit. The apps feel like a patchwork of different UX's, different ways of using the phone, and different modules that don't talk to each other.
Correct me if I'm wrong somewhere, but having 20% of a market vs 1% is a significant difference.
It's also quite more approachable for people to spend on a premium phone than a premium car, since a premium car costs more than what many "westerners" make in a year while an iPhone is less than a "westerners" monthly salary.
Time will tell, I have a lot more faith in Tesla that the legacy automakers at this point, if that changes, I will sell. If my 5 year lead is correct, I think we will see level-5 FSD by then anyways.
I personally expect Tesla to continue to be a fabulous car company but these other segments seem unlikely for various reasons.
Tesla was not incorporated yesterday, they are a 20 years old company, still they are in the making promises phase.
In the same timeframe Amazon completely disrupted the way we buy things, Microsoft put a PC on every desk, Google became the way the world searches for information and Facebook revolutionized the way we communicate.
I think it's time to admit to ourselves that this guy is just a wannabe influencer/politician.
Among the 500 companies in the S&P500 if Tesla disappeared tomorrow it would be the one whose demise would be felt the least by the American consumer, that shouldn't come as a surprise because frankly speaking the target demographic of Tesla and its CEO aren't consumers who buy products to improve the quality of their own lives.
It's a weird mix of financial speculators, cryptobros, people who feel the need to be part of something bigger than themselves, and virtue signalers.
It's a pity that such experiment cannot be performed, Walmart sold 600B worth of products last year, Amazon 400B, Berkshire has 800B worth of insurance premiums AUM. Diappear those companies and then let's see if people are still so eager to pay attention to mr. Musk and his absurd claims and social media trolling/bullying.
The valuation is questionable but saying he is just a wannabe politician / influencer is factually incorrect.
Sure in Bel Air is really important to own a Tesla, just like (if not more) than the car brands mentioned in my handle...
> substantial real revenues
How much of that is credits?
> growing at a remarkable rate
A company incorporated 20 years ago growing at a remarkable rate either implies incompetence in its administration up to now, or a dishonest scheme put in place to artificially simulate "a remarkable rate of growth" right now.
Companies with similar access to talent and capital simply came to dominate their industry in the same timeframe (Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Salesforce, Intel, HP...)
Globally speaking what % of cars sold are Teslas? 1 or 2 % ? Tesla and Musk dominate the newscycle of the financial press, the tabloids and the blogsphere but out there, in the real world they are essentially nonexistent. It seems like the dictionary definition of an influencer to me.
- Total revenue: $18,756M
- Gross profit: $5,460M
- Total regulatory credits: $679M
So to answer your question, about 4% of their revenue is credits. It’s been tiny compared to automotive revenue for at least a year. So we can stop perpetuating that little myth.
0: https://tesla-cdn.thron.com/static/IOSHZZ_TSLA_Q1_2022_Updat...
Not saying Tesla will do the same but transition to EVs will clearly fundamentally change auto market.
The hail Mary is self driving.
This feels a lot like the statements people made about Apple at the start of the smartphone revolution. Plus they’ve had a long time already to beat Teslas at EVs - if they haven’t by now why should they in future?
Did you include the stock split? I don’t think so
One would think those at ultra level of wealth would be more cautious? Or are conversations started on SMS and later moved to another app?
No golden keyboard and no CEO-specific encrypted message board, apparently.
I wouldn't call "hey, you broke the law and will receive the legal punishment" blackmailing. When a DA makes a plead deal with criminals, that's also blackmail in your world?
Like a lot of people in these situations, he may have thought he could beat this in court but due to circumstance (like Tesla's shaky financial situation at the time) accepted the deal to make it go away. That's still not blackmailing.
I think you should listen to the full quote. Musk said that bankers were withholding funding to Tesla when they were having a funding crunch so if Musk had pursued the defense in the lawsuit rather than settling then it would have bankrupted Tesla. Musk WANTED to not settle, but wasn't able to. That's what he's saying. BTW if you note, Musk in general has never settled basically any lawsuit he's ever been engaged in besides this one. He always fights until the end win or lose.
Tesla was trading at a split adjusted $70 per share back then. It's trading over $1000 today. Little larry could have made a killing if he invested then. But then again, he is worth over $100 billion so I doubt he's losing any sleep over it.