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While a popular opinion, that does sound more tin foil hat to me than the alternative that he updated his knowledge in the last few months and/or had his opinio

by drited 5y ago

While a popular opinion, that does sound more tin foil hat to me than the alternative that he updated his knowledge in the last few months and/or had his opinion on Bitcoin changed by communication from others in the organisation. Tesla is a 568 billion market cap company. The profit it made on Bitcoin doesn't move the needle enough to justify some elaborate scheme to pump and dump. Musk is no stranger to whimsical decisions that, while involving a large amount of money in absolute terms, are not material in the context of the much larger value of his shares in Tesla.

qayxc 5y ago
> [...] he updated his knowledge in the last few months and/or had his opinion on Bitcoin changed by communication from others in the organisation. The former idea is ridiculous - so the "Techno King of Tesla" (his choice of title, not mine) took months to learn that proof-of-work crypto produces a lot of CO²? Please... As for the latter, I doubt that to be the case with a person who allegedly acts like this: "If you said something wrong or made one mistake or rubbed him the wrong way, he would decide you’re an idiot and there was nothing that could change his mind." [0] > Tesla is a 568 billion market cap company. The profit it made on Bitcoin doesn't move the needle enough to justify some elaborate scheme to pump and dump. Excuse me? Tesla's Q1 net income was $438M, $101M of which the company attributed to selling crypto [1], that's a whopping 23% of their net profits. I'd say that's "moving the needle" quite a bit indeed. YMMV of course, but I'd like to think that close to a quarter of net income is quite substantial. [0] https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7977370/elon-musk-fired-hundreds-tesla-employees-behaviour-erratic/ https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7977370/elon-musk-fired-hundre... [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/26/tesla-tsla-earnings-q1-2021-.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/26/tesla-tsla-earnings-q1-2021-...
- croes 5y ago
  And the rest of the profit was from selling carbon credits. And now they are losing a big part of one large buyer. https://fortune.com/2021/05/05/tesla-selling-co2-credits-stellantis-loss-of-business/ https://fortune.com/2021/05/05/tesla-selling-co2-credits-ste...
- drited 5y ago
  >>'took him months to learn' You say that like he didn't have two giant companies to run. He wasn't studying bitcoin all this time. >>Q1 profits Company valuation depends on decades of earnings. Current earnings matter little to the valuation of high growth companies. >>excuse me You're excused. It's clear that assessing public company valuations is not your area.
  - qayxc 5y ago
    > You're excused. It's clear that assessing public company valuations is not your area. Basic business economics doesn't seem to be your area. Here's a basic example of how you can shoot the "public valuation" of a company into Low Earth Orbit without actually earning a single penny for your operations: Issue 100 million shares at 0.01 cents per share and go public. That's now a $10k dollar public company. Next, you do an increase in capital stock by selling 1 million additional shares at 0.5 dollars per share to gullible investors. In order to achieve that, you hire a bunch of credible consultants who support your fundraiser by lending your company their good reputation and who advertise your business. You can pay them from the $500k you got from selling the new 1M shares and you can now call yourself a multi-millionaire, because the initial 100 million shares are now worth $50M on paper, because that's the latest share price. See how that works and why public valuation based on share value isn't always the most useful tool in assessing a company's finances? > Current earnings matter little to the valuation of high growth companies. See above for how a company can still be cash-starved from cost of operations and investments despite being worth billions on paper. Current earnings do matter, because the current share price doesn't pay wages or keeps the lights on in your Gigafactories. edit: I also find it quite amusing that you think the self-proclaimed "King of Doge" and co-founder of PayPal(!) doesn't know how crypto works, oh please.
    - drited 5y ago
      This is getting to be a mindless discussion so this'll be my last response on it >> Issue 100 million shares at 0.01 cents per share and go public. That's now a $10k dollar public company. Next, you do an increase in capital stock by selling 1 million additional shares at 0.5 dollars per share to gullible investors. See how that works and why public valuation based on share value isn't always the most useful tool in assessing a company's finances Tesla's free float is worth over $453 billion and over $20 billion worth of stock trades each day. This isn't a penny stock whose illiquid float can be pushed around like that. Regarding company finances, after its capital raise last year TSLA has a large cash balance. $17.4 billion at the most recent quarter end. A few hundred million from the bitcoin sale doesn't move the needle. What matters when you're considering whether Musk would do this or not is whether it would be material to him. It wouldn't because most of his wealth is tied to the value of his stock, which in turn is tied to the market value of the company. The bitcoin profits made an impact of maybe a tiny fraction of a percent of the value of the company and his wealth. Not worth 5 minutes of his time over 3 months. He updated his view to the correct one. Do you really want to be part of a lynch mob that makes it harder for public company CEOs to update their view to the correct one by coming out with tinfoil conspiracies to explain actions that were probably just the result of lack of attention?

by drited 5y ago

qayxc 5y ago

> [...] he updated his knowledge in the last few months and/or had his opinion on Bitcoin changed by communication from others in the organisation. The former idea is ridiculous - so the "Techno King of Tesla" (his choice of title, not mine) took months to learn that proof-of-work crypto produces a lot of CO²? Please... As for the latter, I doubt that to be the case with a person who allegedly acts like this: "If you said something wrong or made one mistake or rubbed him the wrong way, he would decide you’re an idiot and there was nothing that could change his mind." [0] > Tesla is a 568 billion market cap company. The profit it made on Bitcoin doesn't move the needle enough to justify some elaborate scheme to pump and dump. Excuse me? Tesla's Q1 net income was $438M, $101M of which the company attributed to selling crypto [1], that's a whopping 23% of their net profits. I'd say that's "moving the needle" quite a bit indeed. YMMV of course, but I'd like to think that close to a quarter of net income is quite substantial. [0] https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7977370/elon-musk-fired-hundreds-tesla-employees-behaviour-erratic/ https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7977370/elon-musk-fired-hundre... [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/26/tesla-tsla-earnings-q1-2021-.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/26/tesla-tsla-earnings-q1-2021-...

croes 5y ago
And the rest of the profit was from selling carbon credits. And now they are losing a big part of one large buyer. https://fortune.com/2021/05/05/tesla-selling-co2-credits-stellantis-loss-of-business/ https://fortune.com/2021/05/05/tesla-selling-co2-credits-ste...
drited 5y ago
>>'took him months to learn' You say that like he didn't have two giant companies to run. He wasn't studying bitcoin all this time. >>Q1 profits Company valuation depends on decades of earnings. Current earnings matter little to the valuation of high growth companies. >>excuse me You're excused. It's clear that assessing public company valuations is not your area.
- qayxc 5y ago
  > You're excused. It's clear that assessing public company valuations is not your area. Basic business economics doesn't seem to be your area. Here's a basic example of how you can shoot the "public valuation" of a company into Low Earth Orbit without actually earning a single penny for your operations: Issue 100 million shares at 0.01 cents per share and go public. That's now a $10k dollar public company. Next, you do an increase in capital stock by selling 1 million additional shares at 0.5 dollars per share to gullible investors. In order to achieve that, you hire a bunch of credible consultants who support your fundraiser by lending your company their good reputation and who advertise your business. You can pay them from the $500k you got from selling the new 1M shares and you can now call yourself a multi-millionaire, because the initial 100 million shares are now worth $50M on paper, because that's the latest share price. See how that works and why public valuation based on share value isn't always the most useful tool in assessing a company's finances? > Current earnings matter little to the valuation of high growth companies. See above for how a company can still be cash-starved from cost of operations and investments despite being worth billions on paper. Current earnings do matter, because the current share price doesn't pay wages or keeps the lights on in your Gigafactories. edit: I also find it quite amusing that you think the self-proclaimed "King of Doge" and co-founder of PayPal(!) doesn't know how crypto works, oh please.
  - drited 5y ago
    This is getting to be a mindless discussion so this'll be my last response on it >> Issue 100 million shares at 0.01 cents per share and go public. That's now a $10k dollar public company. Next, you do an increase in capital stock by selling 1 million additional shares at 0.5 dollars per share to gullible investors. See how that works and why public valuation based on share value isn't always the most useful tool in assessing a company's finances Tesla's free float is worth over $453 billion and over $20 billion worth of stock trades each day. This isn't a penny stock whose illiquid float can be pushed around like that. Regarding company finances, after its capital raise last year TSLA has a large cash balance. $17.4 billion at the most recent quarter end. A few hundred million from the bitcoin sale doesn't move the needle. What matters when you're considering whether Musk would do this or not is whether it would be material to him. It wouldn't because most of his wealth is tied to the value of his stock, which in turn is tied to the market value of the company. The bitcoin profits made an impact of maybe a tiny fraction of a percent of the value of the company and his wealth. Not worth 5 minutes of his time over 3 months. He updated his view to the correct one. Do you really want to be part of a lynch mob that makes it harder for public company CEOs to update their view to the correct one by coming out with tinfoil conspiracies to explain actions that were probably just the result of lack of attention?