Is Tesla TOAST ?

[Woodsman]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

I remember, Spooky. You've mentioned it before.

Of course take all this with a kilo of salt as both Steve Blank is a Vet from the 60's and I still work part time for "The Man".

Anyway, you're probably right. Maybe there's no "deep state." Maybe after six decades they just packed it in and took up golf.

And if things don't add up, it's probably because I'm bad at maths and not at all because the variables and formulas are kept secret.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

I remember, Spooky. You've mentioned it before.



Anyway, you're probably right. Maybe there's no "deep state." Maybe after six decades they just packed it in and took up golf.

And if things don't add up, it's probably because I'm bad at maths and not at all because the variables and formulas are kept secret.

There is a problem with intelligence in Silicon Valley.

Although not the silly cabal claimed by Elon Musk.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/st...-russia-219071

[Milton Kuo]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

some years ago i had to replace my thinkpad 301x because it was literally falling apart. [the carbon fiber body cracked at one corner and so on.] i had clung to windows xp as long as i could- it worked and it suited my needs. if i were to buy another wintel machine it would have had to run windows 8, and the more i read about, the less enthused i was.

Windows 8 was Microsoft's idiotic attempt to cram a mobile device's user interface onto a desktop operating system, the exact reverse of the early 2000s when Microsoft was trying to cram a desktop user interface onto mobile devices and everything else. If you have to use Windows, I would recommend using Windows Server 2016. It doesn't have the privacy-violating "features" of Windows 10 and it brings back the Start button and menu. The drawback, of course, is that Server 2016 is a lot more expensive than Windows 10. But if you have to use Windows and you need a newer, supported version of it, Server is the way to go. Windows 10 Enterprise might be worth a shot, too, but I'm not sure if it's available for sale to individual consumers.

the major point of failure, or at least the most common failure, of the macbook laptops is the ac adapter, which is apparently designed to require replacement about once a year because the wire frays at a point of connection.

The lack of adequate stress relief on the Apple power cords is a problem for many people but not for me. My AC adapters were never moved (constantly coiled and uncoiled, plugged and unplugged) but they just spontaneously failed. Some electronic component in the adaptor failed; it had nothing to do mechanical stress causing a failure. I have never had any other vendor's notebook computer AC adaptor fail in the way the Apple ones have. Personally, I'm surprised Apple hasn't been sued for a very large sum of money because, at least in the past, it was my opinion that the Apple power adaptors were unsafe and could cause fires.

With the MacBook Pro (purchased in 2008 and it was the last non-unibody, non-chiclet keyboard model) that failed on me, I later discovered that it was a failure of the solder joints for the GPU. Apple denied any widespread problem when it was first reported so I never got any sort of notification that a class action lawsuit eventually forced Apple's hand to repair or replace those MacBook Pros that had that problem. I'm currently still using a 15" MacBook Pro that I bought in late 2013 (first models with Retina display) and outside of AC adaptors failing left and right, has been otherwise trouble-free.

It seems that even when Steve Jobs was alive, Apple's policy regarding widespread defects is to deny the problem is widespread and refuse to fix the problem unless a class action lawsuit is filed or unless the defect is something that poses a severe danger to the users and can result in a truly devastating lawsuit. While I like many of Apple's products, I detest the relatively poor quality and the dishonesty of the company when it comes to addressing widespread manufacturing flaws.

i don't know if there is a solution for a usb c machine. also the macbook pro keyboard got crappier with the last revision. i actually bought an early 2015 macbook pro, with its decent keyboard and magsafe power supply, to have as a backup [i can't function in my work without a functioning laptop], and i hope i will never have to buy another machine.

If I had to buy a notebook computer right now and could not consider a Mac, I would consider a Dell XPS or maybe a Chicom Lenovo X-series or T-series notebook computer. It's a real shame IBM is so badly managed that they couldn't figure out how to make the ThinkPads a business worth keeping. They were the best business class notebook computers on the market.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

If not Wall Street, maybe Russia or China or some bored Emirati? Perhaps.

Things happen fast.

Maybe he could float money from SpaceX or himself over to kite it for a bit too.

Really fast.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

Fascinating dcarrigg.
If Musk buys out all the investors who want to sell at something like the $420 he mentioned, I guess it all becomes no-harm-no-foul, good on Musk.

Trading has halted on TSLA as a result (at $367.25, 2PM EDT), and folks say some short sellers have been burned for nearly a billion dollars. One hates to see harm to anyone, but the short sellers took a risk eyes wide open.

If Tesla goes private then all manner of things vanish - quarterly earnings calls, profitability disclosures, and legal liability for nudge-nudge-wink-wink statements about automobile production rates. I guess the show would go on.

I can't help but wonder if the recent plunge in FB was a motivating factor for Mr Musk...

[DSpencer]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

Fascinating dcarrigg.
If Musk buys out all the investors who want to sell at something like the $420 he mentioned, I guess it all becomes no-harm-no-foul, good on Musk.

Trading has halted on TSLA as a result (at $367.25, 2PM EDT), and folks say some short sellers have been burned for nearly a billion dollars. One hates to see harm to anyone, but the short sellers took a risk eyes wide open.

If Tesla goes private then all manner of things vanish - quarterly earnings calls, profitability disclosures, and legal liability for nudge-nudge-wink-wink statements about automobile production rates. I guess the show would go on.

I can't help but wonder if the recent plunge in FB was a motivating factor for Mr Musk...

Where is it being discussed that Musk would buy out all the investors? Do you mean him personally? I don't think he has the funds to do that.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

Where is it being discussed that Musk would buy out all the investors? Do you mean him personally? I don't think he has the funds to do that.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1026872652290379776

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

Where is it being discussed that Musk would buy out all the investors? Do you mean him personally? I don't think he has the funds to do that.

True. Like all things Tesla, details are murky. I don't expect Musk could do this with his own money, he has something like $20 billion, and the total TSLA market cap is more like $80 billion. If it happens at all, I would expect a consortium of private investors including Musk, maybe SpaceX, sovereign wealth funds, plus a large slice of existing TSLA shareholders who might gladly exchange TSLA shares for shares in the new company.

[BK]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

How would consortium of investors earn money on their investment taking TSLA private?

Comparisons have been made to Dell without mentioning that the business was generating profit.

The net loss for the last six months $1.5 Billion and lots more capital will be needed in the future.

Can an automobile manufacturer compete if it is a private company? Auto manufacturers need cash constantly and I'm not aware of a single major auto manufacturer that is a private company. https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/viewer?a...8&xbrl_type=v#

What am I missing?

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

How would consortium of investors earn money on their investment taking TSLA private?

Comparisons have been made to Dell without mentioning that the business was generating profit.

The net loss for the last six months $1.5 Billion and lots more capital will be needed in the future.

Can an automobile manufacturer compete if it is a private company? Auto manufacturers need cash constantly and I'm not aware of a single major auto manufacturer that is a private company. https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/viewer?a...8&xbrl_type=v#

What am I missing?

BK I honestly have no idea how anyone will ever make any money on Tesla.
Just reacting to Elon Musk's latest splashy press release and spit balling about how this all might happen, based on nothing but pure speculation pulled from thin air.

A group of investors would seem to be required somehow because Elon's personal checkbook is not big enough.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

How would consortium of investors earn money on their investment taking TSLA private?

Comparisons have been made to Dell without mentioning that the business was generating profit.

The net loss for the last six months $1.5 Billion and lots more capital will be needed in the future.

Can an automobile manufacturer compete if it is a private company? Auto manufacturers need cash constantly and I'm not aware of a single major auto manufacturer that is a private company. https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/viewer?a...8&xbrl_type=v#

What am I missing?

Chrysler was bought by Cerebus and brought private (as Chrysler LLC) in 2007. They held it just long enough to collect a pile of TARP money and declare bankruptcy, wiping out all the workers' pensions, then sold it to Fiat, which has since been rolled up into Exor along with Ferarri, Lancia, Alfa-Romeo, Abarth and The Economist magazine and CNH Industrial and Partner Reinsurance and a couple Soccer teams. You know, the sort of feudal arrangment that keeps it so the princes and princesses of the Agnelli Family never have to work for 1,000 years. Or, as many Americans would put it, "free-markets."

So it at least happened on that one occasion. But Chrysler is probably the worst major auto manufacturer, and it was just another pick-the-bones-clean private equity buy-flip gamut that lasted 2 years or so. I doubt it could have lasted very long as a legitimate enterprise.

One of the suppositions of the efficient market hypothesis is that there's wisdom in crowds. Would seem to me that as inequality further spirals out of control, and an increasing share of world capital is controlled by a smaller and smaller number of people, weird decisions like this will proliferate. It's much easier to dupe a couple princes and/or billionaires who inherited their positions than hundreds of thousands of individual and institutional investors.

Hell, I'm not at all convinced that the public equities markets would have let Juciero or Theranos happen the way they did. But I saw in real time who they bilked Kleiner Perkins and Google Ventures. If you open your mind to the possibility--or likelihood--that extreme wealth has no correlation with intelligence, and the world's 8 richest people have more wealth than the bottom 50% (3.5 billion people or so) combined, then selling a few of those people a bill of goods, 1) should be more profitable than selling something to the bottom half of the world, and 2) should probably be much easier.

[BK]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

Chrysler was bought by Cerebus and brought private (as Chrysler LLC) in 2007. They held it just long enough to collect a pile of TARP money and declare bankruptcy, wiping out all the workers' pensions, then sold it to Fiat, which has since been rolled up into Exor along with Ferarri, Lancia, Alfa-Romeo, Abarth and The Economist magazine and CNH Industrial and Partner Reinsurance and a couple Soccer teams. You know, the sort of feudal arrangment that keeps it so the princes and princesses of the Agnelli Family never have to work for 1,000 years. Or, as many Americans would put it, "free-markets."

So it at least happened on that one occasion. But Chrysler is probably the worst major auto manufacturer, and it was just another pick-the-bones-clean private equity buy-flip gamut that lasted 2 years or so. I doubt it could have lasted very long as a legitimate enterprise.


Hell, I'm not at all convinced that the public equities markets would have let Juciero or Theranos happen the way they did. But I saw in real time who they bilked Kleiner Perkins and Google Ventures. If you open your mind to the possibility--or likelihood--that extreme wealth has no correlation with intelligence, and the world's 8 richest people have more wealth than the bottom 50% (3.5 billion people or so) combined, then selling a few of those people a bill of goods, 1) should be more profitable than selling something to the bottom half of the world, and 2) should probably be much easier.

Chrysler buyout was a disaster for Cerberus "When Cerberus Capital Management took over Chrysler back in 2007, the New York private equity shop knew it was a gamble. But Cerberus believed it could steer the automaker to firmer ground and remake Detroit in the process. Two years later, that ambitious "find, fix and hold" investment strategy blew up in its face." https://www.forbes.com/2009/05/01/ba...l#222f67d71ad9

Agree 100% - You can never really appreciate the distortions in markets and asset prices when interest rates are at historic lows around the globe.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

Tesla looks much different than Chrysler as a purchase. Chrysler had huge legacy costs for pensions; big brick-and-mortar assets; and a big financing/banking operation. Tesla not so much. dcarrig's suggestion makes sense to me that some immeasurably rich investor will end up fleeced as the patsy. Let's remember that Musk and Tesla absorbed Solar City with a couple billion in debt there. Musk's goal is to avoid the embarrassment of admitting Tesla is a business failure, thereby preserving his ability to do this all one more time. But no profit will ever be made selling electric cars or rooftop solar installations, and some third party investor will be left holding the bag.

[DSpencer]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

True. Like all things Tesla, details are murky. I don't expect Musk could do this with his own money, he has something like $20 billion, and the total TSLA market cap is more like $80 billion. If it happens at all, I would expect a consortium of private investors including Musk, maybe SpaceX, sovereign wealth funds, plus a large slice of existing TSLA shareholders who might gladly exchange TSLA shares for shares in the new company.

Most of the $20 billion is in Tesla stock already. To be fair, it's not like he would have to buy out the whole company, just those who want to sell. Regardless, I don't see anywhere that Musk himself would be buying out shareholders.

If Musk thought that TSLA stock was undervalued...he could simply buy more. It seems his motivation is freeing himself/Tesla from the burdens of being a public company. Maybe he thinks it will be easier to raise the cash that Tesla needs to stay alive. Maybe he wants less scrutiny about how financial results are reported. Or maybe he just wants to make short selling impossible.

The current stock price seems to far from $420 for this to work. Who can know for sure, but it seems like a lot of investors would gladly take a 10% premium over the current market price. Especially if it's their last chance to easily get off the wild ride. The fact that the market price isn't converging with the target private price seems to suggest the market is skeptical that will happen. Who knows, maybe it will happen but at a lower price.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Is Tesla TOAST ?

If Musk thought that TSLA stock was undervalued...he could simply buy more. It seems his motivation is freeing himself/Tesla from the burdens of being a public company.

Exactly. He wants all the privileges and upside of markets, but none of the downsides and responsibility. Another John Galt hiding under his bed from the Mammon he fed and nurtured when the beast grows too big for him to control and comes for its pound of flesh. Or, alternatively, jk's signature .jpg says it all too.

Government tax credits on every car and government subsidies on every factory and government contracts up the wazoo weren't enough. Now he gets a $2b cash infusion from a government sovereign wealth fund, and probably finances the operation of taking his show off the market with even more government cash. And yet we're supposed to sit back and believe it's a good thing citizens in countries around the world are chipping in their hard earned cash and nations' balance sheet to subsidize a billionaire making $50k+ luxury vehicles and running his own private little space program. I feel like the very idea would have been laughed out of the room just a few decades ago. But here we are. It's happening. In real time. And everyone think's it's normal. Can't fix the bridges. Can't fix the dams. Can't pay the workers. Can't pay the pensions. But we always have another few billion to subsidize luxury goods.

But hey, the Treasury Dept today proposed redefining the term "financial services" to exclude banking. So this is just what we do now. Nonsense.