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Haven't some new-construction apartment buildings in China been left mostly empty, while others start crumbling before they're finished? As for Tesla, the mark

Haven't some new-construction apartment buildings in China been left mostly empty, while others start crumbling before they're finished? As for Tesla, the market can stay irrational longer than one can stay solvent. If not for EM's cultlike fanbase, I doubt it would be this overvalued.

vardump 5y ago
There's also anti-EM cult. I guess it balances it, shrug?
- gigaflop 5y ago
  I feel like anti-cults are never as strong as the cult itself, and will rarely ever be. A cult is a portion of society following something or someone, and I feel like it encompasses people from suggestible fans to fanatics. An anticult can't contain people who have no interest, as those who lack interest will be on the sidelines not caring. I also think that there's a larger 'negative opinion threshold' that needs to be crossed for someone to migrate to the anticult, since anticult membership requires opposition and participation. In essence, cults can be passive, while anticults are active, and whenever you ask for activity, membership plummets, simply because the bar has gone above knee-height.
filoleg 5y ago
"EM's cultlike fanbase" has no power to drive up the stock price in any possible way other than ultra-short-term (and even then, it would be a really large stretch). Retail investors don't have such power in general, aside from when it comes to very low volume and low cap tickers (which Tesla is neither). There could be many potential ways of justifying why Tesla stock is overvalued (if you are inclined to believe so), but "retail is just being irrational and hypes it up, because they are superfans" is just one of the most off-base ones.
- gigaflop 5y ago
  I think it's more than retail investors. I think it's the hype and noise that his followers make, plus whatever noise he himself makes. I think he's a bit like Trump in some ways. Trump was often said to represent an image of what a certain demographic of people thought was rich and successful. He made a lot of noise, threw around a lot of money, and his followers in turn made a lot of noise. EM(I write it as such because I'm sick of seeing the name everywhere I turn) seems to have the image of "tech guy who struck gold" and "can't stop making money". While some of his success is definitely attributable to himself, I feel like people give him too much credit and celebrity status. I think the biggest drivers of his success are a gigantic war chest of money, combined with a massive following, and enough ideas to spend the money on. There are hundreds or thousands of people in the US alone who are smarter, and have better ideas, and don't make asses of themselves in front of millions. What they lack is his money and fame, so we'll never see what potentially world-changing things those people are capable of. Unless they get hired at one of Musk's companies, in which case people will attribute someone else's genius to EM. It's like attributing innovation to a VC instead of a startup. A fun strawman, don't take it seriously: Musk is just the Silicon Valley version of Trump. And instead of starting his own Twitter, he flaunts the idea of just buying the regular Twitter. One other nit I pick is that I'm personally a bit salty over his $DOGE tweets. I had decided that I should accumulate some for some next "big wave", but that wave happened to be some rich guy who probably didn't own any $DOGE, and it had happened before I could get hold of anything. I "lost" potential thousands of dollars because some guy sent a tweet.

vardump 5y ago

There's also anti-EM cult. I guess it balances it, shrug?

gigaflop 5y ago
I feel like anti-cults are never as strong as the cult itself, and will rarely ever be. A cult is a portion of society following something or someone, and I feel like it encompasses people from suggestible fans to fanatics. An anticult can't contain people who have no interest, as those who lack interest will be on the sidelines not caring. I also think that there's a larger 'negative opinion threshold' that needs to be crossed for someone to migrate to the anticult, since anticult membership requires opposition and participation. In essence, cults can be passive, while anticults are active, and whenever you ask for activity, membership plummets, simply because the bar has gone above knee-height.

filoleg 5y ago

"EM's cultlike fanbase" has no power to drive up the stock price in any possible way other than ultra-short-term (and even then, it would be a really large stretch). Retail investors don't have such power in general, aside from when it comes to very low volume and low cap tickers (which Tesla is neither). There could be many potential ways of justifying why Tesla stock is overvalued (if you are inclined to believe so), but "retail is just being irrational and hypes it up, because they are superfans" is just one of the most off-base ones.

gigaflop 5y ago
I think it's more than retail investors. I think it's the hype and noise that his followers make, plus whatever noise he himself makes. I think he's a bit like Trump in some ways. Trump was often said to represent an image of what a certain demographic of people thought was rich and successful. He made a lot of noise, threw around a lot of money, and his followers in turn made a lot of noise. EM(I write it as such because I'm sick of seeing the name everywhere I turn) seems to have the image of "tech guy who struck gold" and "can't stop making money". While some of his success is definitely attributable to himself, I feel like people give him too much credit and celebrity status. I think the biggest drivers of his success are a gigantic war chest of money, combined with a massive following, and enough ideas to spend the money on. There are hundreds or thousands of people in the US alone who are smarter, and have better ideas, and don't make asses of themselves in front of millions. What they lack is his money and fame, so we'll never see what potentially world-changing things those people are capable of. Unless they get hired at one of Musk's companies, in which case people will attribute someone else's genius to EM. It's like attributing innovation to a VC instead of a startup. A fun strawman, don't take it seriously: Musk is just the Silicon Valley version of Trump. And instead of starting his own Twitter, he flaunts the idea of just buying the regular Twitter. One other nit I pick is that I'm personally a bit salty over his $DOGE tweets. I had decided that I should accumulate some for some next "big wave", but that wave happened to be some rich guy who probably didn't own any $DOGE, and it had happened before I could get hold of anything. I "lost" potential thousands of dollars because some guy sent a tweet.