[chx]

> Building things people want gives credibility.

nope, it generates hype. That's all there is.

Up until very very recently they were losing money on every car they made and only a pandemic killing enough factory workers worldwide to create shortages have they managed to break even. What Tesla made money on is regulatory credits.

A year ago

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a36266673/teslas-q1-2021-e...

> The company had an income of $438 million, including a $101 million "positive impact" from the sale of Bitcoin, and $518 million from selling zero-emission regulatory credits to other automakers. That means Tesla continues to lose money making and selling vehicles.

The Boring Tunnel Company barely have built anything and what they did build is a deathtrap.

Hyperloop is completely impossible.

SpaceX's Starlink satellites are involved in about 1,600 close encounters between two spacecraft every week, ~50 % of all such.

Also, Elon Musk already committed a federal felony as a twitter user and it is beyond bizarre he is a) not in jail b) allowed to bid on it.

[zionic]

>Up until very very recently they were losing money on every car they made

For others in the crowd, this phrase is extremely useful for spotting a short seller (or someone who was primarily influenced by the short-n-distort crowd from 2016-2019).

This statement is a lie, and was never true. Every car Tesla made was produced and sold at a profit. Their high margins fed crazy growth. You can only get to these bullshit statements by counting their reinvestment into factories as "loss".

For example:

-Make car for $40k

-Sell for $50k

-$10k/per car profit

-Make $xM in profit from cars for that quarter

-Raise $1B to grow based on the above

-Spend some of that $1B on factories, such that the total spent of that $1B is more than $xM

-Short n Distort campaigners argue that because you spent more than you made, you are "losing money on every car".

[chx]

I never ever trade individual stocks , that's not for ADHD people. My savings rest in unmanaged index funds.

[_-david-_]

>Also, Elon Musk already committed a federal felony as a twitter user

Surely he is innocent until found guilty. Just because you think he committed a crime doesn't mean he actually did.

[morelisp]

You think he would've settled for $40mil and heightened personal scrutiny if he was innocent?

[hersko]

He talks about this in the latest TED talk. Supposedly banks were refusing to give Tesla loans unless he settled with the SEC

[forty]

It's very surpring that he wouldn't admit being guilty and would find excuses instead :)

[_-david-_]

People settle all the time even if they are innocent. There are a variety of reasons such as the cost of the lawsuit and the negative press from the trial.

[zionic]

Yes, Elon was unlawfully pressured to settle with the SEC against his will or best interests.

At the time Tesla was in a "precarious" financial position with the Model 3 ramp up. The banks told Elon they would suspend his lines of credit/hold loans if he did not immediately settle with the SEC.

He chose to settle with the SEC and admit to lying when he did not in order to save Tesla from going bankrupt. All of this aligns with publicly known information.

If we lived in a functional open society this claim would result in a special counsel investigation into the SEC and the responsible banks, with multiple bureaucrats ending up behind bars.

[morelisp]

It sounds like "the banks," who would be in an even more privileged position to know if the $420 offer was legitimately secured, also thought it was not. Doesn't really help Elon's case. It is also not the story he told in 2018 when he was still fighting the charges.

> a special counsel investigation into the SEC and the responsible banks, with multiple bureaucrats ending up behind bars.

lol

[zionic]

>It sounds like "the banks," who would be in an even more privileged position to know if the $420 offer was legitimately secured

Speculation. What's not speculation however is that the company suffered material harm as a byproduct of malicious prosecution.

If I, as a government employee, open a public investigation into someone whom I know to be innocent and cause that entity harm I have incurred liability. The SEC knew Elon had the funding, they used weasel words to imply he did not. The SEC would have lost in court. _All_ contracts have contingencies, this was no different. Saying that because a contingency existed the funds were "not secure" is horsecrap.

[morelisp]

> The SEC knew Elon had the funding

Do you have proof - or even evidence - that Musk had funding, let alone that the SEC knew he had funding, other than Musk's own statements?

[browserman]

This is sort of exactly the thing I mean. Even if you don't agree with me that Elon is a serial liar, I don't think you can dispute a more generous characterization of him as having a long history of optimistically interpreting the facts in his favor. Why on earth would you take this claim at face value?

[zionic]

Why on earth would you believe an industry that’s committed to serial mistruth?

Reuters today disgraced themselves, it’s beyond embarrassing.