5 ms·

That says 500k annualized, not 500k for the year

by ikeboy 8y ago

Dylan16807 8y ago
And 500k annualized is what he claims the meaning of the tweet to be. Unless Tesla updates their projections soon, that's probably not a lie.
- ikeboy 8y ago
  Nobody's claiming the annualized number is a lie. The claim is the original post is wrongly saying 500k total for the year and wasn't run past someone else like Musk promised he would for all Tesla related statements.
  - Dylan16807 8y ago
    > Nobody's claiming the annualized number is a lie. I was talking about whether "Musk meant the annualized number." is true or a lie. > The claim is the original post is wrongly saying 500k total for the year and wasn't run past someone else like Musk promised he would for all Tesla related statements. The agreement was that he would get approval for posts with material information. If he's citing a number everyone already knows from the public report, then it's not material information. (except in some kind of unreasonably-broad sense that would make "Tesla makes cars." an offending tweet) So if he says 500k, and he's talking about the annualized number in the previous public report, then there is a strong argument that he doesn't need approval. If he says 500k and it's not annualized, then it's a new number, and he does need approval.
    - ikeboy 8y ago
      It doesn't matter what he meant, it matters what the statement would be reasonably expected to mean. Saying we'll produce 500k can't reasonably be read as we'll have an annualized rate of 500k, which is why he needed to issue a correction.
      - Dylan16807 8y ago
        > It doesn't matter what he meant, it matters what the statement would be reasonably expected to mean. That depends on whether you consider a misphrasing to be "information".
        darkpuma 8y ago
        Did investors know it was a 'misphrasing' before he issued a correction hours later?
        Dylan16807 8y ago
        Does that change whether it counts as "information"? Harm to investors isn't the criteria for whether this breached the agreement. (And is probably low to zero for a couple tweets outside trading hours.)
        darkpuma 8y ago
        Claims about production numbers are 'information'.
        kevinpet 8y ago
        Not if they are already known.
        mamon 8y ago
        Original statement from the annual report was "Barring unexpected challenges with Gigafactory Shanghai, we are targeting annualized Model 3 output in excess of 500,000 units sometime between Q4 of 2019 and Q2 of 2020." So saying "we'll produce 500k cars in 2019" is a lot of new information: - it's now definitely 2019, not Q2 2020 - it's 500k total, not just "annualized output" - risk of "unexpected challeges" in Shanghai disappeared.
        8y ago
    - sokoloff 8y ago
      > If he's citing a number everyone already knows from the public report, then it's not material information. The production and sales figures of a car maker are always material information, IMO. Under the facts you posit, they would not be non-public or novel information, but they would still be material information. Even with that, he was not re-communicating previously issued guidance unchanged. Even with that and even if he were, he still needed to get approval prior to doing it.
      - Dylan16807 8y ago
        > they would not be non-public or novel information, but they would still be material information. Well I attempted to address that. Do you think a tweet of "Tesla makes cars." would violate the agreement? I'm not joking or being rhetorical when I ask that. The answer could be "yes", but in that case I feel like the agreement was written to be intentionally misleading because it should just say "any mention of Tesla".
        sokoloff 8y ago
        > Do you think a tweet of "Tesla makes cars." would violate the agreement? I'm not joking or being rhetorical when I ask that. I would agree that particular statement is so utterly obvious and completely devoid of news content as to not violate the agreement. However a statement that "Tesla is going to begin shipping a new model of car" or "Tesla is going to begin shipping the Tesla truck" or "Tesla is going into the solar business by bailing out my other company" or other statements would be material (and therefore subject to pre-approval). Note that "Tesla makes cars" is itself materially different from "Tesla expects to ship around 500K cars in 2019" (even before considering that the former is true and the latter is false).
        Dylan16807 8y ago
        > However a statement that "Tesla is going to begin shipping a new model of car" or "Tesla is going to begin shipping the Tesla truck" or "Tesla is going into the solar business by bailing out my other company" or other statements would be material (and therefore subject to pre-approval). If those are all things that were in a recent public report, I don't see a difference. They're all public information about the company, and they all matter. Anything in the quarterly report should count as fully obvious in a "reasonable investor" context. > Note that "Tesla makes cars" is itself materially different from "Tesla expects to ship around 500K cars in 2019" (even before considering that the former is true and the latter is false). How so? If anything, "Tesla makes cars" is vastly more important than their production expectation. Is the different that it's in future tense? That again would only make his tweet less material.

That says 500k annualized, not 500k for the year

by ikeboy 8y ago

That says 500k annualized, not 500k for the year

And 500k annualized is what he claims the meaning of the tweet to be. Unless Tesla updates their projections soon, that's probably not a lie.

ikeboy 8y ago
Nobody's claiming the annualized number is a lie. The claim is the original post is wrongly saying 500k total for the year and wasn't run past someone else like Musk promised he would for all Tesla related statements.
- Dylan16807 8y ago
  > Nobody's claiming the annualized number is a lie. I was talking about whether "Musk meant the annualized number." is true or a lie. > The claim is the original post is wrongly saying 500k total for the year and wasn't run past someone else like Musk promised he would for all Tesla related statements. The agreement was that he would get approval for posts with material information. If he's citing a number everyone already knows from the public report, then it's not material information. (except in some kind of unreasonably-broad sense that would make "Tesla makes cars." an offending tweet) So if he says 500k, and he's talking about the annualized number in the previous public report, then there is a strong argument that he doesn't need approval. If he says 500k and it's not annualized, then it's a new number, and he does need approval.
  - ikeboy 8y ago
    It doesn't matter what he meant, it matters what the statement would be reasonably expected to mean. Saying we'll produce 500k can't reasonably be read as we'll have an annualized rate of 500k, which is why he needed to issue a correction.
    - Dylan16807 8y ago
      > It doesn't matter what he meant, it matters what the statement would be reasonably expected to mean. That depends on whether you consider a misphrasing to be "information".
      - darkpuma 8y ago
        Did investors know it was a 'misphrasing' before he issued a correction hours later?
        Dylan16807 8y ago
        Does that change whether it counts as "information"? Harm to investors isn't the criteria for whether this breached the agreement. (And is probably low to zero for a couple tweets outside trading hours.)
        darkpuma 8y ago
        Claims about production numbers are 'information'.
        kevinpet 8y ago
        Not if they are already known.
        mamon 8y ago
        Original statement from the annual report was "Barring unexpected challenges with Gigafactory Shanghai, we are targeting annualized Model 3 output in excess of 500,000 units sometime between Q4 of 2019 and Q2 of 2020." So saying "we'll produce 500k cars in 2019" is a lot of new information: - it's now definitely 2019, not Q2 2020 - it's 500k total, not just "annualized output" - risk of "unexpected challeges" in Shanghai disappeared.
        8y ago
  - sokoloff 8y ago
    > If he's citing a number everyone already knows from the public report, then it's not material information. The production and sales figures of a car maker are always material information, IMO. Under the facts you posit, they would not be non-public or novel information, but they would still be material information. Even with that, he was not re-communicating previously issued guidance unchanged. Even with that and even if he were, he still needed to get approval prior to doing it.
    - Dylan16807 8y ago
      > they would not be non-public or novel information, but they would still be material information. Well I attempted to address that. Do you think a tweet of "Tesla makes cars." would violate the agreement? I'm not joking or being rhetorical when I ask that. The answer could be "yes", but in that case I feel like the agreement was written to be intentionally misleading because it should just say "any mention of Tesla".
      - sokoloff 8y ago
        > Do you think a tweet of "Tesla makes cars." would violate the agreement? I'm not joking or being rhetorical when I ask that. I would agree that particular statement is so utterly obvious and completely devoid of news content as to not violate the agreement. However a statement that "Tesla is going to begin shipping a new model of car" or "Tesla is going to begin shipping the Tesla truck" or "Tesla is going into the solar business by bailing out my other company" or other statements would be material (and therefore subject to pre-approval). Note that "Tesla makes cars" is itself materially different from "Tesla expects to ship around 500K cars in 2019" (even before considering that the former is true and the latter is false).
        Dylan16807 8y ago
        > However a statement that "Tesla is going to begin shipping a new model of car" or "Tesla is going to begin shipping the Tesla truck" or "Tesla is going into the solar business by bailing out my other company" or other statements would be material (and therefore subject to pre-approval). If those are all things that were in a recent public report, I don't see a difference. They're all public information about the company, and they all matter. Anything in the quarterly report should count as fully obvious in a "reasonable investor" context. > Note that "Tesla makes cars" is itself materially different from "Tesla expects to ship around 500K cars in 2019" (even before considering that the former is true and the latter is false). How so? If anything, "Tesla makes cars" is vastly more important than their production expectation. Is the different that it's in future tense? That again would only make his tweet less material.