4 ms·

I truly can't fathom wanting to keep Musk at the helm of Tesla. It seems at this point the lowest hanging fruit for repairing Tesla's prospects would be to repl

I truly can't fathom wanting to keep Musk at the helm of Tesla. It seems at this point the lowest hanging fruit for repairing Tesla's prospects would be to replace him with someone who doesn't cultivate the loathing of potential customers.

tene80i 2y ago
Presumably the problem is the valuation is based on his hype, not the company fundamentals. So firing him brings the share price down to what it’s actually worth.
acdha 2y ago
The problem is that they are wildly over-valued. Musk squandered their first-mover advantage so they have a ton of competition (most of whom are better at the car side of building cars), a reputation for safety and quality problems, and the things their stock price is based on like self-driving cars are years behind the promised schedule and the competition. The same absentee CEO who is turning away their core customers is also the only reason their share price is over something like $30-40 (as a car maker based on their numbers) or $60-70 (tech company). That puts their board in a tricky position: he’s destroying their core business but since the share price hasn’t cratered yet, anything which removes the meme-stock status will instantly trigger a shareholder lawsuit. The time to act was years ago, so there aren’t any easy actions now.
- butterlettuce 2y ago
  > Musk squandered their first-mover advantage Is that why I see Tesla Superchargers everywhere and not other brands? They already have first mover advantage with their charging infrastructure (at least in the US), and FSD. Say what you will about FSD, but no other carmaker comes close to it. I’m not trying to idolize Musky here. I’m simply seeing what Tesla the automaker has to offer compared to their competition.
  - acdha 2y ago
    I see chargers from multiple companies all over now - unlike a decade ago - but they’re allowing other vendors to use them, but that’s not a huge edge to hang that massive P/E off of. Their share price is like they’re early Google or Facebook with very high leverage sales to costs, but that’s just not how the car industry (or anything which makes expensive physical objects) works. They have a good position, although it’s steadily fading, but it’s not a money-printing machine. Electricity is a commodity so there’s an upper bound on profits before competition ramps up. One of the claims they’ve made is that FSD will change that by allowing them to eat Uber’s business, but that’s years behind schedule and they have nothing approaching Waymo’s experience or safety record, and the self-imposed hardware limitations likely mean that they will never be able to deliver what they sold to many customers. Again, that doesn’t mean they’re bankrupt but I just don’t see a way to justify their stock price on their business fundamentals unless they suddenly get a lot better at making things compared to their competitors.
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    They were ahead until Musk decided to build the Cybertruck instead of the $25k Model 2. That’s when they lost.
- DFHippie 2y ago
  Okay, that checks out.
- rasz 2y ago
  > The time to act was years ago Yes, 7 years ago to be exact. And they did act, they made a deal with elmo in 2018. He memied Tesla stock from $20 all the way to $400. You might not like elmo, I mean who would now?, but he did deliver. Refusal to pay out reward for this ridiculous overvaluation is only going to bite them in the ass.
  - acdha 2y ago
    Yes. A full-time CEO who cares about the future would be immensely better for the actual business but the instant he leaves, the share price is going down permanently.
    - rasz 2y ago
      Screw caring about the future and actual business, this is stock prices we are talking about here! :) People refuse to remember how $650 billion valuation target sounded in 2018, it was pure madman pipe dream. Only way to reach it was frau^^^creative marketing. If they paid him that bonus smoothly in 2020 Elon would be pushing Tesla up to $1K as an AI company for the last two years. Instead he stol^^^redirected GPUs to his new startup https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/04/elon-musk-told-nvidia-to-ship-ai-chips-reserved-for-tesla-to-x-xai.html https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/04/elon-musk-told-nvidia-to-shi... and packed bags. Maybe that bonus is what finally radicalized Elon. Im unclear on the dates, was refusal to pay the bunus/ shareholder lawsuit before twitter acquisition? Maybe that bonus would have meant no x/no far right push on x/no Trump endorsement.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
belter 2y ago
Where is Elon Musk?: https://youtu.be/4WmWZ0pZpyQ https://youtu.be/4WmWZ0pZpyQ

tene80i 2y ago

Presumably the problem is the valuation is based on his hype, not the company fundamentals. So firing him brings the share price down to what it’s actually worth.

acdha 2y ago

The problem is that they are wildly over-valued. Musk squandered their first-mover advantage so they have a ton of competition (most of whom are better at the car side of building cars), a reputation for safety and quality problems, and the things their stock price is based on like self-driving cars are years behind the promised schedule and the competition. The same absentee CEO who is turning away their core customers is also the only reason their share price is over something like $30-40 (as a car maker based on their numbers) or $60-70 (tech company). That puts their board in a tricky position: he’s destroying their core business but since the share price hasn’t cratered yet, anything which removes the meme-stock status will instantly trigger a shareholder lawsuit. The time to act was years ago, so there aren’t any easy actions now.

butterlettuce 2y ago
> Musk squandered their first-mover advantage Is that why I see Tesla Superchargers everywhere and not other brands? They already have first mover advantage with their charging infrastructure (at least in the US), and FSD. Say what you will about FSD, but no other carmaker comes close to it. I’m not trying to idolize Musky here. I’m simply seeing what Tesla the automaker has to offer compared to their competition.
- acdha 2y ago
  I see chargers from multiple companies all over now - unlike a decade ago - but they’re allowing other vendors to use them, but that’s not a huge edge to hang that massive P/E off of. Their share price is like they’re early Google or Facebook with very high leverage sales to costs, but that’s just not how the car industry (or anything which makes expensive physical objects) works. They have a good position, although it’s steadily fading, but it’s not a money-printing machine. Electricity is a commodity so there’s an upper bound on profits before competition ramps up. One of the claims they’ve made is that FSD will change that by allowing them to eat Uber’s business, but that’s years behind schedule and they have nothing approaching Waymo’s experience or safety record, and the self-imposed hardware limitations likely mean that they will never be able to deliver what they sold to many customers. Again, that doesn’t mean they’re bankrupt but I just don’t see a way to justify their stock price on their business fundamentals unless they suddenly get a lot better at making things compared to their competitors.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  They were ahead until Musk decided to build the Cybertruck instead of the $25k Model 2. That’s when they lost.
DFHippie 2y ago
Okay, that checks out.
rasz 2y ago
> The time to act was years ago Yes, 7 years ago to be exact. And they did act, they made a deal with elmo in 2018. He memied Tesla stock from $20 all the way to $400. You might not like elmo, I mean who would now?, but he did deliver. Refusal to pay out reward for this ridiculous overvaluation is only going to bite them in the ass.
- acdha 2y ago
  Yes. A full-time CEO who cares about the future would be immensely better for the actual business but the instant he leaves, the share price is going down permanently.
  - rasz 2y ago
    Screw caring about the future and actual business, this is stock prices we are talking about here! :) People refuse to remember how $650 billion valuation target sounded in 2018, it was pure madman pipe dream. Only way to reach it was frau^^^creative marketing. If they paid him that bonus smoothly in 2020 Elon would be pushing Tesla up to $1K as an AI company for the last two years. Instead he stol^^^redirected GPUs to his new startup https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/04/elon-musk-told-nvidia-to-ship-ai-chips-reserved-for-tesla-to-x-xai.html https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/04/elon-musk-told-nvidia-to-shi... and packed bags. Maybe that bonus is what finally radicalized Elon. Im unclear on the dates, was refusal to pay the bunus/ shareholder lawsuit before twitter acquisition? Maybe that bonus would have meant no x/no far right push on x/no Trump endorsement.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

belter 2y ago

Where is Elon Musk?: https://youtu.be/4WmWZ0pZpyQ https://youtu.be/4WmWZ0pZpyQ