For us, these events represent a historical moment in this annals of corporate governance and an epic embarrassment to the capital markets.

For Elon Musk and Tesla's Board of Directors, it was Tuesday.

Stock still > $300. Stock price, bro!

TSLA worth more than actual real profitable companies with good management.

He's got quite a cult following too it's unreal.

Those new tweets are bizarre. Why on earth would he drag that mess up again when people where starting to forget? Maybe board putting pressure on him to quit , knows hes a goner and trying to justify his actions.

https://twitter.com/erinscafe/status...890372609?s=19

The next tsla in the making. Omg I'm loloing

Best trip report ever.

Hilarious, but I thought he was building the NYC->DC tunnel first? lol

Its so awesome


Also antonio gracias (board member) has been blocking bears ln twitter who have had zero interactions with him


Part of me wants tesla to live forever, exactly like this

#ElRonMusk #Monorail #IThinkISawSpuriousThere

erinscafe is a hero

If I were running TSLA, my big strategic move right now would be to raise an enormous amount of equity. Like, $10B worth, so we wouldn't have to come back to the markets for 2 years or more, hopefully never. It'd be a 20% dilution, but you solve all your cash flow problems, and you don't have to worry about the stock price nearly as much any more, so you can stop doing idiotic short-term **** like building a second, ****tier assembly line in a tent to make your quarter-end number.

I know, of course you can't raise that kind of money at the same price as the stock is trading now. But it could certainly be done at a big enough discount. You could probably get it done at $250/share.

So... why aren't they doing this? Even at a smaller scale, raise $5B or something. It's just such an obvious move, what's keeping Musk from doing it? TS had suggested it's a disclosure issue, but what would that be, specifically? And why would you have to disclose it in a capital raise but not in your regular public filings?

Everyone knows they need to raise by selling equity, but Musk would have to admit he failed, as he has said in the last few quarterly updates that "we will not need to sell equity" - he will do anything to not lose face by going back on that.

Anything including a bs "going private deal" or "faking numbers til you make it" or even bankruptcy (he'll call it "innovative restructuring") i'd imagine.

They also need a new shelf registration, and I am guessing the SEC is preventing them from renewing their shelf registration until those disclosures are made. Certainly not now with a pending SEC investigation. Those filings do not have to be made public.

My guess is it has to do with the reservation breakdown. Either they're somehow fraudulent (420k reservations?), or perhaps 85% of them are for the 35k M3, meaning that he has already delivered all the cars that there was demand for at the higher prices. Although in the latter case, I wonder why he doesn't simply pass off the huge pile of car inventory as the 35k model.

I'm curious where this would be trading if the market/Qs were flat over the past few weeks, TSLA is in over 100 ETFs so that hurts the bear case during a raging bull market overall. Most of the highest shorted names are going nuts, worth to note how heavy it still feels and refuses to completely break down (yet). Those who are short but hedged are doing pretty well on a relative basis.

Companies are not required to disclose in the general course of business. They can't lie about material facts, but they also don't have to disclose many things. However, when they do a prospectus/shelf registration for an equity raise, they're essentially offering fresh equity, like an IPO, and the SEC both has to approve it AND they can be sued for investor losses from lies.

So if there are serious problems at the factory - like the paint shop only being able to handle 5K/week total and no new paint shop being built, like terrible M3 rework rates, like a serious ongoing SEC investigation, they would have to disclose those to raise. It would tank the stock.

The other possibility is that no one will underwrite the raise. Raising is less easy than you think and involves a great deal of risk (reputation and financial) for the underwriting bank. It's possible no one wants to touch it after examining Tesla's books and investigations.

The third option is that Musk a crazy assclown who's harming the long term future of Tesla because he's being stubborn about raising for some reason or another. I don't give this much credit, but I've been giving it a bit more credit yesterday given the serious mental problems the guy is displaying.

We know for a fact at this stage that Musk is a boss level cuck and maybe he actually believes some of his own bull**** flowing from his deluded grandiose narcissism. Why else would you over-install robots after claiming you could do "air friction limited" pure robot lines at 10x the speed of the majors? Musk is a true dumbass of epic proportions and he's been getting less mentally well lately, so maybe it's stubbornness + denial. I don't know.

I think the most likely is the Musk-isn't-completely-bat**** version where they can't raise.

Another Tesla graveyard:

https://twitter.com/ValueExpected/st...874304/photo/1

Hypothetically, if Tesla's demand numbers are accurate, and they do meet their stated production goals at the price points they are claiming, will they still need to raise cash somehow and are they still structurally bankrupt based on balance sheets?

I have no position and no interest in taking one, just think the fiasco is crazy and curious wtf is going on.

They need to raise money whether they meet their productions numbers or not if they want to keep up current growth rates.

That's even if they are marginally profitable for Q4 2018.

There is no way to avoid raising cash OR getting a large loan (billions) before the end of December.

Even if they had massive demand at $60K and ramp up production, 100K Model 3s between now and December 31st at $10K net per car is a billion dollars, and they owe several billion by then (debt payments + continuing supplier purchases + loan requirements of liquid assets).

Various terms of their covenants might prevent them taking on more debt before payback. Their last debt agreements involved handing over lease money for Model S/X, and mortgaging their factory (i.e. highly secured financing with no wiggle room). You have to think they'd have tapped debt if they could; no reason not to.

Updates since then:
- It is revealed that the diver's attorney sent a letter to Musk on 8/6, stating intention to file for libel, and asking for his attorney to discuss.
- Buzzfeed found this and emailed Musk, asking if this contradicts his "Why didn't he sue?" claim
- Musk doesn't respond to the letter and instead attacks the Buzzfeed writer, asking him why he assumed the cave diver is a diver:



https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article...eatened-to-sue

Well, it depends on what the definition of "is" is.

All he has to do is apologize, retract, and stfu, but he doubles down on stupid because that's how ****ed up his ego is.

"Diver? Oh, I thought you called him a cave dRiver! He's definitely not one of those."

Everday is something ridiculous, how is that even possible, funding secured was what? 3 weeks ago? And there have been 30 ridiculous things since then.

Maybe thats the strategy

Again, works for Trump....somehow.

This company keeps giving every day. I will be sad when it is over.

Another note on demand, from a recent cc-

Breaking these down:

Prius (25-30k) These owners care about electric/green issues, performance isn't a factor. They might be able to afford 50k cars and chose Prius since it was the only option for a while. I don't seen any Tesla loyalty here, any other EV fills their demands as well.

Accord/Civic (20-35k) Tesla is a stretch at 50k, the small slice of Honda owners that will cut back substantially in other areas of life to upgrade is going to be eaten through very quickly.

Leaf (30-35k) Few of these have ever even been sold, surprised this is on the list (<10% of Accord sales vol in the US). Not many of these to run through, and fewer from people than will be able to spend more. Leaf demand is based on its EV drivetrain, not luxury/performance features.

BMW 3 (45-65k) This segment is where most 50k+ buyers are going to come from. Tesla needs to just takeover this segment to stay alive.



The 420k orderbook could be 80+% 35k models.


Hopped into the Sep 7 300 puts @5.4. Production slowdown seems strongly verified, I don't believe the plant has ever been able to quickly increase salable vehicle production.