[young_unixer]

If a company is doing tons of R&D, and everything suggests that that R&D will give huge dividends in the future, then it seems perfectly normal for such a company to have a high market-cap/revenue ratio.

If having too big of a market cap relative to revenue is wrong, then you're basically saying that companies should not invest too much in their future, just use their money to sell as much as possible right now.

You know who else has extremely high ratios of mktcap/revenue? Pharmaceutical companies trying to cure diseases that have no available cure. Is it wrong to try to cure those diseases?

[cosmotic]

I think Tesla does a good job of making folks think they are doing a lot of R&D, but that's about it. Based on some quick internet research, Tesla is a quarter of the R&D of either Ford or GM...

Unless you think it's higher quality or in a different area... but the whole world is going toward electric cars and autonomous driving. Tesla AutoPilot comes in a distant second to GM according to Consumer Reports: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/28/gms-super-cruise-tops-teslas...

Tesla build quality also ranks low, even according to Elon: https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/03/business/elon-musk-tesla-qual...

[mywittyname]

There's a reasonable chance of Tesla creating patents that generate a license fee from every car produced, basically in the globe.

It's kind of the reason Toyota has a monopoly on hybrids: they have a patent on the best kind of hybrid system. Ford held a similar enough patent that Toyota entered into a license agreement with them.

Getting a 20 year monopoly on key EV/battery tech will be worth an unimaginable sum.

I don't agree with Telsa's valuation, but I can appreciate why investors support them at their current price.

[Ericson2314]

If it's so perfectly reasonable, they should be able to take out cheap loans to pay this new Elon salary.