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One advantage of Musk's positioning as a "nutcase" is that him selling Tesla stock to buy Twitter doesn't signal "I believe Twitter is a better investment than

One advantage of Musk's positioning as a "nutcase" is that him selling Tesla stock to buy Twitter doesn't signal "I believe Twitter is a better investment than Tesla" as much as it signals "Musk is doing Musk stuff"

xg15 5y ago
This. He communicated his plan pretty overtly: He made no secret that his buy attempt is mostly for political reasons and that his selloff will be a means to the end of securing funding for the takeover. None of this has anything to do with actual investment decisions. So maybe he hopes to sell his shares to "activist buyers" who want the takeover to succeed and therefore have no interest in dropping the share price. Of course that is assuming any of the purported motives are real and not just an act.
deckard1 5y ago
So you're saying TSLA holders don't care that Elon Musk is an unhinged lunatic. Got it. Someone remind me again why this isn't a cult?
- spoonjim 5y ago
  He is both an unhinged lunatic and the best tech CEO of all time and it’s not even close.
  - tsol 5y ago
    This is closer to the truth, but it's weird how people are so passionate about either loving or hating him.
- kjksf 5y ago
  As a TSLA holder I care that I've made 20x on my stock. I care it's the best performing stock in the last 5 and 10 years. I care that Tesla is growing revenues at 50%+ over more than a decade, and profits even faster. Which is a better financial performance than Amazon has at similar stage. What I do not care is your editorializing of Musk's character of calling me a cult member. I guess I should be offended but then I take a look at my bank account and it kind of makes me not care about what you think about me or Musk.
  - McLaren_Ferrari 5y ago
    Your TSLA gains are nothing compared to what many people in here made on Ethereum. Yet such people don't roam around screaming off the top of their lungs "Buterin is God!". Ethereum, much like TSLA, much like betting on Trump back in 2016 are about calling an event and predicting what's gonna be the outcome of a socio-political movement. Nobody is better prepared to predict such outcome than the guy who can keep his cool and openly admit that such social movement is really just BS and hot air, but that nonetheless it still has steam and room to grow among the populace for the time being. What you don't want to be is a so called "true believer" as that would prevent you from jettisoning yourself once the movement runs out of steam, if you are a "true-true believer" you might find yourself storming the capitol...or in Musk's case the SEC building as that would be the aim of his rage when the socio-religious movement that he built runs out of steam as they eventually all do.
    - jokethrowaway 5y ago
      > Yet such people don't roam around screaming off the top of their lungs "Buterin is God!". You haven't met crypto people yet, I take? It's normal, you give people money and they worship you. Think of the "cult" of Steve Jobs linked to Apple gains. This is nothing new. It's also not a real cult, it's more as admiring successful entrepreneurs.
      - McLaren_Ferrari 5y ago
        > It's normal, you give people money and they worship you. You earn yourself that money by successfully making a prediction. By the same token when you win a poker game in Vegas you don't worship Steve Wynn for providing you the casino and a table. You gave yourself that money. > Think of the "cult" of Steve Jobs linked to Apple gains. Apple stock gains came as the product was becoming ubiquitous among the populace, matter of fact it slightly trailed the virality of the product. Same goes for Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Facebook etc. That is the normal financial trajectory of a company, which differs from a socio-religious movement such as crypto, TSLA, a political candidate etc. Those are all based on promises about the future and getting people galvanized without ever delivering any actual product improving people's quality of life on a scale comparable to the promises made. > This is nothing new. It's also not a real cult, it's more as admiring successful entrepreneurs. This is exactly what gets people burned when the socio-religious movement implodes and they fail to jettison themselves. Don't admire, limit yourself to gauge the level of admiration that other people have for the guy and try predicting if it will expand or contract. That's an indicator of the health of the socio-religious movement so that you know when to jettison yourself.

xg15 5y ago

This. He communicated his plan pretty overtly: He made no secret that his buy attempt is mostly for political reasons and that his selloff will be a means to the end of securing funding for the takeover. None of this has anything to do with actual investment decisions. So maybe he hopes to sell his shares to "activist buyers" who want the takeover to succeed and therefore have no interest in dropping the share price. Of course that is assuming any of the purported motives are real and not just an act.

deckard1 5y ago

So you're saying TSLA holders don't care that Elon Musk is an unhinged lunatic. Got it. Someone remind me again why this isn't a cult?

spoonjim 5y ago
He is both an unhinged lunatic and the best tech CEO of all time and it’s not even close.
- tsol 5y ago
  This is closer to the truth, but it's weird how people are so passionate about either loving or hating him.
kjksf 5y ago
As a TSLA holder I care that I've made 20x on my stock. I care it's the best performing stock in the last 5 and 10 years. I care that Tesla is growing revenues at 50%+ over more than a decade, and profits even faster. Which is a better financial performance than Amazon has at similar stage. What I do not care is your editorializing of Musk's character of calling me a cult member. I guess I should be offended but then I take a look at my bank account and it kind of makes me not care about what you think about me or Musk.
- McLaren_Ferrari 5y ago
  Your TSLA gains are nothing compared to what many people in here made on Ethereum. Yet such people don't roam around screaming off the top of their lungs "Buterin is God!". Ethereum, much like TSLA, much like betting on Trump back in 2016 are about calling an event and predicting what's gonna be the outcome of a socio-political movement. Nobody is better prepared to predict such outcome than the guy who can keep his cool and openly admit that such social movement is really just BS and hot air, but that nonetheless it still has steam and room to grow among the populace for the time being. What you don't want to be is a so called "true believer" as that would prevent you from jettisoning yourself once the movement runs out of steam, if you are a "true-true believer" you might find yourself storming the capitol...or in Musk's case the SEC building as that would be the aim of his rage when the socio-religious movement that he built runs out of steam as they eventually all do.
  - jokethrowaway 5y ago
    > Yet such people don't roam around screaming off the top of their lungs "Buterin is God!". You haven't met crypto people yet, I take? It's normal, you give people money and they worship you. Think of the "cult" of Steve Jobs linked to Apple gains. This is nothing new. It's also not a real cult, it's more as admiring successful entrepreneurs.
    - McLaren_Ferrari 5y ago
      > It's normal, you give people money and they worship you. You earn yourself that money by successfully making a prediction. By the same token when you win a poker game in Vegas you don't worship Steve Wynn for providing you the casino and a table. You gave yourself that money. > Think of the "cult" of Steve Jobs linked to Apple gains. Apple stock gains came as the product was becoming ubiquitous among the populace, matter of fact it slightly trailed the virality of the product. Same goes for Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Facebook etc. That is the normal financial trajectory of a company, which differs from a socio-religious movement such as crypto, TSLA, a political candidate etc. Those are all based on promises about the future and getting people galvanized without ever delivering any actual product improving people's quality of life on a scale comparable to the promises made. > This is nothing new. It's also not a real cult, it's more as admiring successful entrepreneurs. This is exactly what gets people burned when the socio-religious movement implodes and they fail to jettison themselves. Don't admire, limit yourself to gauge the level of admiration that other people have for the guy and try predicting if it will expand or contract. That's an indicator of the health of the socio-religious movement so that you know when to jettison yourself.