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Comment by cowpig | Hacker News Reader

Anyone here have any insight as to why TSLA has a P/E ratio of 126?

Various promises as to world changing technologies around the corner (robotaxis, optimus robots, full self driving using cameras) and the cult of Musk. You have to believe it's not an automobile company and shouldn't be priced like an automobile company.

ok but here are some massive tech companies' p/e ratios:

Amazon: 34

Alphabet: 19

NVIDIA: 37

Microsoft: 30

Most of those companies are still growing despite their size, which is boring to investors. To be a true unicorn you need shrinking sales and margins, a toxic brand, paying your hated CEO more than lifetime revenue of the company, and 2% share of the market you're in (with a valuation of more than all the competition combined).

Both AOL and Yahoo had P/E ratios above 100 at one point in time before the bubble collapsed.

Amazon had a P/E ratio of 3000 right before AWS started making major bank.

Both were on a trajectory to dominance. Tesla hasn't been for 2 years.

Musk's most basic skill is con artistry.

He conned "institutional investors" with pie in the sky promises that are now long overdue and nowhere close to being met.

Example: He bragged about having a million orders for Cybertruck. Only about 50k have been registered.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/demand-off-charts-elon-musk-1...

Now that these "investment professionals" bought what he was selling in a big way (they hold 70% of the stock), they are reluctant to admit they were snookered by selling and locking in their losses. Their upcoming performances bonuses hang in the balance.

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