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When you consider how rich and well-connected the players who stand to lose if Tesla wins, I don’t think it’s at all crazy to suggest that they are using some o
by kemiller 7y ago
When you consider how rich and well-connected the players who stand to lose if Tesla wins, I don’t think it’s at all crazy to suggest that they are using some of that wealth to slow them down. If you happen to have 10 billion hanging around and there are billions more on the line, it’d almost be stupid not to. There’s no law against malicious short selling assuming you’re not outright lying about them in print. Oil companies have a the means, motive, and opportunity. Exxon Mobil alone made $20b in profit last year. 30% of TSLA is 12b or so. If they can delay the electric transition by a couple of years by kicking in a few billions along with the other big ones, that’s a great return on investment even if they take a huge bath on the shorts.
Can I prove that’s what’s going on? No, I’m just some dude on the internet. But it really is not implausible at all.
- maest 7y agoAre you suggesting Exxon Mobil is placing huge short bets on Tesla? How would that affect the company apart from deflating the share price? At a stretch, it might make it more difficulmore expensive for Tesla to refinance/raise capital via issuing stock, but that sounds like really bad ROI for billions of dollars.
- refurb 7y agoWouldn’t a public company like Exxon need to disclose any massive short position on it’s quarterly public statements? I think someone would have noticed if Exxon’s balance sheet said something like “Derivative securities - $2.8B”.
- gamblor956 7y agoExxon mobile also has a heavy investment in clean energy. Bigger than the total value of the Tesla shorts. They're not just oil anymore.