Yep.
This particular market nonsense is why I short near term puts and buy LEAPS at net credit.

Still waiting to get putted.

Elon confirmed there were no COVID cases at Fremont

In the heydays of the dot-com boom, Akamai was selling at >2000x revenues. Some businesses IPOed with just a website; no business plan or product, or what industry they were going to operate in.

Pump pt 2:

Lol starting to really believe that some of the analysis in this thread (while technically correct + I agree with it from a fundamentals perspective) doesn't actually matter. Even if Elon has committed accounting wizardry/questionable grey acts I am starting to think it's insane to put too much weight into this mattering. He's done it for 20+ times. Why do we think he can't keep doing it for another 20, or 50 times? What specifically will be different in the next few years, where this can no longer be a thing, like it has been in the past? I don't see anything in particular as the market is ripe for this w/ cheap debt and credit.

Fwiw I see similar things in crypto, where people make bets on what could be considered long-term fundamentals and the market just doesn't care (at least in short/medium term) and it's a mistake to continue to keep using a broken framework (the thesis being: fundamentals matter) You have to adjust to what is, not what you want the market to be.


Basically what I am saying is this could be like Bill Ackman and Herbalife. In 2016 he wrote a 100 page powerpoint slide basically why Herbalife was a mlm scam/piece of trash. All his analysis (iirc) was actually spot on. The only thing he got wrong was that this actually mattered. So completely right on nuances/merit except on the idea that the market would give a **** -- which is the thing that actually counts for something. 3 years later I believe the SEC gave Herbalife a small slap on the wrist/fine, and yeah meanwhile the stock was up quite a bit from that 2016 spot. Basically I am starting to genuinely believe all the TSLA shorts (me included) are going to lose a bunch of $ because we were naive enough to think there is accountability in a market like this. If I'm largely right on this, I guess the only question is what # to throw in the towel @ I guess. Curious to hear of other people/shorts on this thought process?

fraud

I'm not smart so don't put any weight into what I say but for me the accounting stuff is a small part of the thesis. It's mostly like they're priced for growth that I don't think is going to happen. Real competition is coming to EU, everyone in the US who wants a tesla has already bought one (or two or more... seems like the big cult members already bought their 3s and their Ys), so that leaves China demand? I don't see them selling significantly more than 100k/quarter until cybertruck maybe happens. I may be naive but when they sell 100k max in q3 and 100k max in q4, the narrative of "hyper growth company" will hopefully take a big hit. quote me when i'm wrong please!!!

These were my thoughts on March 19th, when the stock was at 427. I still feel the exact same way:

I have heard the “dead demand, competition is coming” almost every quarter for the last 3 years. Not really seeing any competition(except for a few quarters in a few smaller markets) and demand seems to be growing and with less import duties in China/EU I expect it to keep growing. I am projecting 150k deliveries in Q3. If Tesla delivers <120k in Q3 I will admit that I was very wrong on demand, will you do the same if they deliver > 120k? (Given that we don’t seen any new covid19/similar related events)

This is an incredibly dumb statement.

Why not say this about every product ever?

"Everyone in the US who wants an Audi has already bought one"

"Everyone in the US who wants a sofa has already bought one"

Meanwhile in the real world

Tesla removes batteries from scaled-back Berlin factory plans

Hard to tell. Could be that they decided to move it from Phase I to Phase II to speed up Phase I as latest rumors is that they intend to start producing cars early 2021:
https://twitter.com/Hagen/status/1278388302001909762

Guess I was pretty close:
90.650 del
82.272 produced
https://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/n...ion-deliveries

Could you elaborate on this? I'm convinced there is a good chance Tesla drops back to around 600 this year still, but the bankruptcy hypothesis does not seem so likely to me anymore to me. Are you suggesting fraudulent accounting is a likely scenario?

Epstein's girl arrested by fbi. Saw this on twitter

Of course its not likely and it never was, but its much larger than any company of its size/fame to lose 90-100% of its market cap.

Summer 2022 $5 strike puts going for 0.26 giving ~5% chance of busto.

I think it's fair to say that accounting fraud is required for the BK thesis at this point, id also say accounting fraud probability is something like this

Pure fiction via massive off-balance sheet transactions - 15%

Fabricated sales/self-dealing sales - 30%

Intentionally creating support to deflate liability balances (ie warranty reserve/RVG) or other questionable but not outright fraudulent accounting games - 95%


First one is def BK, second one is maybe BK depending on level, and third one is CH11 at worst but way down the road.


Just my opinion. The best argument against accounting fraud is that Elon isn't smart enough to do it, but I definitely think Elon could find a cult cuckboy to help him do it.


If you want pure tin foil type stuff. One of the BEST way to do this would be to use Tesla to launder money. I know that is super out there but all the weird missing copper stories + weird trips to Mexico and South America + weird rumors of Elon and El Chapo wife + obvious drug habit and manic personality + The weird AP/AR/Accrual ratios that don't make sense.


This would be difficult, and very unlikely, and it would require using the proceeds to pay off-balance sheet liabilities (which would, as a result, create a larger than actual gross margin and profit).


Super tin foil, clearly

Funny you mention Mexico cause apparently his brother has been living down there. I always figured if Elon was doing some sort of fraud it would be every complex. David Einhorn is probably a very smart dude and he was first person I saw to bring it up.

i recommend following the NKLA ceo on twitter.

tesla fanboys fuming at him because he's selling reservations for a product that doesn't exist is irony at its peak and funny as hell.

Finkle IS Einhorn... Einhorn.. IS Finkle...

Norway, country with highest EV penetration and formerly Tesla's second biggest market:


And Tesla is down ~65% YoY in the EU - https://twitter.com/fly4dat/status/1278595573919240193

Competition has been late, this is the real underlying story. Impossible to focus on VW 5 year development timelines when the stock is up 600% in months and Elon is clowning off somewhere. Tesla doesn't have magic (proven by all the missed promises), so it comes down to invested capital for product edge. Of course they lose here massively.

The future is competition slowly coming online, totally displacing Tesla in the EU (strongest preference against US cars), then the US (will flip away to better stuff like the move to Japanese in the 80s), China is more of a wildcard.

I don't think anyone has an idea what Elon will try and do. They can slide into obsolescence, try to go fully Chinese, engineer some financial takeover/flip/merger, something else unseen right now.

I was way wrong on what the stock could do, not touching this until some reasonable bounds on the up/down side can be created.

daddy is dancing

There is no number that would make me give up; I can short near term puts to buy LEAPS at net credit to infinity until I finally get putted when it all collapses. At the end of the day, cash flow does matter and with the stock price where it is, a bailout equity raise is out of the question.

I think the only thing that would cause me to give up is if we find out that the BIS has investigated Tesla or Elon for export control violations but has been told to shut it all down. That would imply that Elon and Tesla are protected by the highest echelons of the US government despite committing conduct explicitly detrimental to the existence of the United States, and would have to involve something much more sinister than anything Epstein or Clinton could ever hope to achieve.

sorry idk how to embed

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/...876773383?s=20