Medaggie said:
I try to be unbiased when it comes to Tesla and I root for him.
I don't understand when people say Elon is a Fraud. You can call him many names and would make sense but how is he a Fraud.
I think people who hate on Tesla is protecting ICE/OIL's legacy and the jobs/$$$ that comes with it.
Ford/GM are financially in deep trouble without a clear model to get out of it similar to Sears when Amazon. They can either be Circuit City or Best buy. Either Pivot or stay with the same tired model.
I root for American Companies and Tesla creates alot of American Jobs recently rated the most American made car.
People will root for VW, Toyota before they root for Tesla. Makes no sense to me.
The guy essentially made the 1st main stream viable car company from scratch in decades. He help/primarily started Paypal, Tesla, Space X which all are multi billion dollar companies arguably the leaders in their sectors. He is the 2nd richest person.
I don't see Fraud anywhere.
I had the same debate with someone who said Elon was the worse businessman and this is the reason why Tesla will go Bankrupt. His proof was alot of "feelings" vs my hard facts.
You don't see fraud?!?!?
"Fraud is an intentionally deceptive action designed to provide the perpetrator with an unlawful gain or to deny a right to a victim."
How about the time he tweeted he was going private for $420 a share (he wasn't) because short sellers hurt his feelings. The SEC kindly gave him a wrist slap literally for FRAUD. Followed of course by his famous SEC, suck on Elon's cock tweet because he got his feelings hurt that the SEC didn't appreciate his bull***** Anyways, I'd say this classifies as a deceptive action for an unlawful gain.
Or every single lie he's told about autopilot - most egregiously selling equity on the promise of 1 million robotaxis by the end of 2020 in the year 2020. Are there 1 million Tesla robotaxis? Are we even close to that? Was that a not a lie? He got investor money for it. That's kind of the definition of fraud.
The whole solarcity acquisition is just another disgusting example of fraud if you read the actual details of it... this article summarizes a lot of it:
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/10/tesla-ceo-musk-goes-to-trial-monday-on-2point6-billion-solarcity-deal.html. The quick summary is he lied about the status of the solar roof product (which was half assed) to justify saving solarcity from bankruptcy with Tesla stock. Elon was the chairman of both companies, his brother was the CEO... And SpaceX owned hundreds of millions of solarcity bonds. And that's just the surface. He is currently being tried in civil court of committing FRAUD.
Then there was the Tesla capital raise on the backs of the Tesla Semi a product that is set for delivery in the upcoming year, 2019. Maybe it hasn't been produced yet because it will never be a long range competitor to diesel semi trucks (let alone ****ing trains - which of course Elon claimed because his words are better than the truth) when the weight of the battery cuts carrying capacity by at least half.... And that's before discussing recharge time and range vs. Diesel. Also autopilot is apparently not at the point where these things can go without a driver - that wasn't a key selling point or anything. Buy diluted tesla equity before this product hits the road 2 year ago. Fraud.
This is an old one, so I doubt you guys remember. Back in the early 2010s, California was offering extra EV credits to companies if they could hit a given range and a given recharge time. They could hit the range, but never recharge time, so they came up with the idea that they could just swap battery packs. So they showed it on stage once in a demonstration. Opened one location where they did it in San Francisco. Claimed the additional $6k per car in EV credits for 3 years, and then when pushed by the city of California quietly ended the battery swap plan. Why? They knew from the begining that the liability exchange of swapping batteries (a large portion of the value of the car) was too much. You can't give someone a new battery and take one worh 100k miles and pretend it's equivalent. But they lied about it's commercial potential to juice up their balance sheet (aka FRAUD) with some sweet, sweet EV credits for years.
Now maybe you could think those are all innocent mistakes and not necessarily calculated examples of fraud. I would argue that isn't a standard afforded to any other executive in the business world, but just to humor you past examples of his personal antics highlight that these are not just some innocent mistake... Fraud has been a calculated tool to keep the fuel of investor and taxpayer cash funneling into the tesla engine. There was the time he called a rescue diver a pedo because Elon desperately wanted credit for something he didn't do on twitter... then doubled down claiming he had proof the diver married a 13 year old (which was a lie)... then tripled down in "anonymous interviews". Everything Elon has done to pump cryptocurrency, especially dogecoin and bitcoin. Arguably he commited fraud with his bitcoin pump and dump - I mean "test of liquidity"... The pathetic hyperloop he's riden to "genius" fame for the last decade. It's a ****ing joke technically speaking. The boring company finding ways to make subways infinitely less efficient so that people can fantasize about Elon some more... that and selling roofing torches I guess. Even SpaceX is not immune... Point to point travel on earth on a rocket? Rockets will never be as safe as commercial airplanes - but his fanboys eat that CGI **** up. Surely Elon realizes that, but he was happy to present it to you as if it was arriving next year. In 2016, Elon said SpaceX would be on Mars in 2018.
https://www.space.com/32719-spacex-red-dragon-mars-missions-2018.html. So surely any day now. Even SpaceX's launch costs are actually in-line with the old space shuttle if you look behind the headlines of Elon Musk quotes. It turns out the extra fuel needed to land on earth again (+ reduced carrying capacity) along with all the maintenance to get a rocket back to launch ready isn't the infinite cost savings they love to pretend it is. For the record, SpaceX wasn't the first company to make a VTOL rocket either. In 1995 McDonnell Douglas made the DC-X. The biggest difference is that McDonnell Douglas didn't turn it into an exciting livestream. And this isn't even close to everything. Just what I remembered off the top of my head.
Tesla's are a decent second vehicle for the upper middle (or upper) class homeowner. It's a pretty niche market and it won't surprise me a bit if they overbuild capacity and run into a demand wall eventually. In general, people in appartments will not buy a Tesla. People that can't afford to throw money down and spend $40k+ on a car, won't buy a tesla. Given that Tesla is already priced at 2x Disney (ridiculous) in a capital intensive business that's only profit comes from a rapidly shutting window of regulatory credits and pumping and dumping bitcoin (to test liquidity of course), I don't really see how anybofy can think it'll casually 5x from here. It's already priced to perfection. Plus you have the liability of Elon overstepping his god complex and getting into trouble again with some dumbass tweet.
I would never trust my money in the hands of a 50 year old man with the emotional maturity of a 13 year old who pretends he's a genius. Maybe that works for some of you. I will give him credit as an amazing capital raiser... only if lying, manipulating, overpromising, and commiting blantant fraud is an acceptable way to raise capital. I am anti-Elon and his psycopathic god complex. Nothing more and nothing less.
