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And the thread of the sweater gets pulled... While not shocking given the previous track record of Trevor's previous enterprises - the most likely outcome here
by clomond 6y ago
And the thread of the sweater gets pulled...
While not shocking given the previous track record of Trevor's previous enterprises - the most likely outcome here is that it will get very, very ugly. He also already 'cashed out' millions of dollars to buy a 32.5 million dollar ranch - one of the largest residential properties in Utah's history. [1]
Tesla's run up and general optimism around EVs seems to have triggered a gold rush of sorts, effecting other EV pureplays' stock prices (ex. NIO) regardless of progress and actual state of the technology.
While in theory I am in strong support of new financing models to bring new technologies to market(ex. these Special Purpose Acquisition Companies - SPACs) I am very concerned that if even a portion of the alleged is true, this could poison this financing route for legitimate businesses and the sector overall. A camp in the investment industry even think Tesla is a fraud, and this would only harm the narrative and long term mission of Tesla.
It would have been great if they actually took the money, utilized it with a plan and executed on the plan to help with electrification - the premise for which I think many retail investors have become involved.
Even if there was no fraud, I was always skeptical of their plan (smelled like vaporware to me) and their adamance about hydrogen as an energy storage medium without sufficient discussion on electrolyzer technology or how those unit economics work always struck me as big red flags. Seems like Nikola's plan was to combine a bunch of off the shelf parts existing from other sources into a product, in that case - where is the technology? So much of it with just the bit of digging and what I hear about it has made me skeptical.
Probably best to stay as far away as possible and see where the chips fall. I do wish them the best though, assuming there was no fraud.
[1] https://www.latimes.com/business/real-estate/story/2019-11-14/nikola-motor-head-trevor-milton-2000-acre-utah-ranch https://www.latimes.com/business/real-estate/story/2019-11-1...
- dylan604 6y ago>A camp in the investment industry even think Tesla is a fraud, At this point in Tesla's history, how is it a fraud? It is manufacturing and selling cars. It is building batteries. I can see where some may think it is not living up to the hype/promise of returns, but they are actually making and selling product. Yet people are still claiming fraud?
- LegitShady 6y agoThere are a lot of short sellers who lost money who were desperate for any reason for Tesla stock to fall.
- ashtonkem 6y agoThis is an incredibly unfair characterization about how short sellers think and operate.
- cultus 6y agoWhy is there this attitude that short positions are somehow less moral than long positions? I really don't get it.
- ketzo 6y agoI think it's because short sellers are seen as pessimists -- on some level, you're betting for a business to fail (or perform poorly), and regardless of whether or not you're right, that means you're betting on people losing jobs, dreams going up in smoke, etc. etc. I don't subscribe to this narrative, but it's an easy one to spin when your stock is the one being short sold.
- electriclove 6y agoBecause sometimes the shorts do some shady things.. https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/elon-musk-vs-short-sellers.118431/ https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/elon-musk-vs-short-s...
- cultus 6y agoPeople holding long positions do shady stuff all the time as well. I don't see the distinction.
- electriclove 6y agoPlease share some examples. I'd like to understand so I can compare to the things in that link.
- yholio 6y agoCombining existing off the shelf components into a novel design is a legitimate way to build an innovative product. The first Tesla Roadster was exactly that, all car companies had access to the technology but they dismissed it as a gimmick, who would buy a street car powered by lawn mower tech.
- Lazare 6y ago> While in theory I am in strong support of new financing models to bring new technologies to market(ex. these Special Purpose Acquisition Companies - SPACs) I am very concerned that if even a portion of the alleged is true, this could poison this financing route for legitimate businesses and the sector overall. SPACs have been around for a long time, and they've always had a bad reputation, often used for various forms of fraud and penny stock scams. Going live via a SPAC is opaque and expensive; you'd never choose it unless the normal IPO path seemed too risky for some reason, probably because you might not be able to survive the transparency the process requires. If Nikola is just a complete fraud, that wouldn't taint SPACs so much as it would confirm their existing reputation.