I am invested and have been for almost a decade, for the record.
Obviously the odds of this happening are close to 0 but after investing heavily in Tesla I came to the conclusion (perhaps wrongly) that a good deal of the value in tesla stock is tied to Musk. He could get hit by a bus tomorrow.
So I sold and put it all in an index fund that still holds tesla but on a more diluted basis.
Just curious about your outlook on it.
On the gripping hand, I personally believe Tesla is over-valued and it only takes a watershed moment for investors to determine the emperor is wearing no clothes which could cause the stock to plummet.
From the cheap seats, it looks like both have terrific strategies and now need to be left alone to execute.
That was a key selling point for the vehicles -- save the planet!
I'm well aware of the market segmentation and where the big ticket items are, thank you very much. Yes, he'll likely get more cybertruck buyers due to fandom but there's a lot of non-truck buyers that are going to rethink giving money to him.
The implication that truck drivers love bipolar douchebags is also vaguely offensive; if that was true the flyover states would be all about Kanye.
This isn't 4D chess, he's just off his rocker and morphing into 2000s Howard Hughes
> Tesla owners are majority white. 87% of individuals who own the three Tesla models identify as Caucasian, 8% identify as Hispanic, and 5% represent all other ethnicities, according to Hedges and Company. Tesla drivers appear to have higher incomes.
Typically more money means you are less in touch with the surrounding world.
Tesla's valuation is mostly Musk. "Infinite demand", "full self-driving"... the SEC should have cracked down on him a long time ago but they seem unwilling to do so. Ultimately reality will win out and Tesla's stock will realign. That hasn't happened because Musk has an army of fanboys he can use to pump the stock, apparent ins at the SEC and a very aggressive call buying program on Tesla. I don't think anyone other than Musk could get away with pumping the stock like he has, so the valuation is mostly dependent on him.
Competition seems to have difficulties catching up, chargers are improving, single cast car body seems to be a big benefit for factory simplification, they still had the best engine (and the adaptive reluctance idea seemed to be, again, ahead of anything else on market). New models are said to now be designed to be robotics friendly from day 1 which would again reduce costs. The embedded computer is said to, again, be years ahead of other brands. The cars have a lot of defects (windshield, doors, seats) but on the EV side of things .. they seem to keep driving the market.
And I'm not much of a fanboy .. especially since musk started to push beta SDV on the roads (and the twitter shipwreck is not helping)
Yes, because I'm talking about the valuation which is completely divorced from fundamentals and entirely based on Musk's hype of non-existent products like robotaxis and the cyber truck. They're a small, boutique car manufacturer with a $769B market cap. To put things into perspective, GM has a market cap of $51.5B.
They are not actually 'small' anymore, they are at a 2 million a year run rate and growing.
> GM has a market cap of $51.5B
Yes and have you considered why that is? Look at how many vehicles GM sold in 2008 and then now, it continues to go down. They are retreating from markets. Their EV division has been a complete failure with their ultium platform barley producing a few 1000 cars.
They are surviving because of ICE SUV/Pickups in the US market but have basically no chance to do much beyond that.
And that market is under massive attack over the next half decade.
It's not real. You can't buy it, it has no credible deadline for shipping.
> GM has a market cap of $51.5B
> Yes and have you considered why that is?
Yes, the fundamentals of their business dictate this market valuation. Unlike Tesla where the price is dictated by Elon's pumping (and occasional dumping).
Their valuation is based on being a "tech company" like FAANG, and somehow making more money by offering robo-taxis or something than selling cars.
As others have pointed out, he has some qualities that making him a major asset and some that make him a liability.
Since you asked specifically about Elon, I think he is best at launching companies via the SV playbook, but not as well-suited for sustaining mid-to-latestage companies that aim to serve as industry cornerstones (with some exception allotted for SpaceX). The pattern I have seen is the underlying layers of the companies he spearheads early on typically erode due to rapid accumulation of both technical and cultural debt.
I’d guess he’s becoming less valuable as the company is larger. Twitter is the textbook example of the downside of ruling by whim.
Never!
You are being sarcastic right?
Honestly, I think Tesla would be better off if Musk were to go away - at this point. Musk really is the perennial entrepreneur. He's a great idea man, and he can get a company built and make that idea come to life. But he can't run a business.
I think Musk has overstayed his welcome at Tesla. He did it - he took EV's from the niche that hardly anybody paid attention to and made them mainstream. Bravo! I never would have thought he could have done it - but he did. Now it's becoming clear it's time for him to step away and tackle another problem. Otherwise he risks interfering with his own success.
Optimus also has potential but needs a personality like Musk's to bring it to fruition.
Without him both of the projects will likely be abandoned.
It seems the me the only evidence is that people now like him less, and somehow that now makes him bad at being CEO.
Sorry, don't really see the connection.
Tesla the company would probably be better off with a serious, responsible CEO. But it will be an ugly ripping the band-aid off moment for the stock, which is valued based on Elon's rosy promises (50% annual growth, real FSD, Optimus, etc) that no one believes his successor would achieve
A. Musk leadership tarnishes Tesla
B. Musk distracted by Twitter, Tesla falls to Earth
Both will be true.
And yet somehow many analysis and major investors don't seem to disagree with you.
I have seen this position on HN for a while now, its always 'totally clear and logic' that Tesla is overvalued.
But if you go back and snapshot all those cases, often not true.
You can certainty make a case both ways regarding Tesla.