Is Elon Musk hurting Tesla?

Larbre34

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120013582#Comment_120013582

I don't think his leadership is compatible with Tesla or Space X either at this stage. He is clearly somewhat unhinged and completely distracted from doing any one thing fully and correctly.

In fact, Tesla's largest individual shareholder, of 23 million shares, Leo Koguan, has called for him to go before he drives "high flying Tesla into a penny stock". And this guy was once his biggest cheerleader.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120014100#Comment_120014100

I got the impression that he doesn't really run SpaceX anymore despite being CEO

I agree with others that he should probably take a step back and set direction rather than getting into the nitty gritty details on several major enterprises in different sectors

But I guess that's how he likes to roll, he obviously enjoys the chaos around him and isn't afraid of controversy.

He can do what he wants as far as I'm concerned but I feel for the staff at his various companies who are likely rolling their eyes at his antics

It's worth keeping in mind that a lot of Tesla staff, particularly senior leaders, often receive stock as part of their compensation.

Generally if you see the CEO seemingly deliberately working to hurt your salary then you might not be inclined to give your best effort, might even be pushed to work elsewhere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120014083#Comment_120014083

Oh yeah I have linkedin but don't regard that as social media even though it's turned into that now but I don't take the bait, but it's exactly the kind of nonsense on linkedin that big tech love. It's gone extremely intolerable and unprofessional people expressing thoughts and opinions and politicising a so called professional platform. It's gone to the dogs altogether and I would hope that if someone else took it over they would forbid people posting anything other than jobs. I have thought about deleting linkedin too but will keep it for another while until I find out whether or not it may effect my ability to apply for jobs in the future.

But seriously the mental effects of social media can't be good, in fact I think this has been well proven by now, this level of toxic exposure especially over years is bound to have an effect on People, I've failed to see the good in social media and feel it would be far better if People pick up real hobbies and not giving big tech more control over their lives but, until then, I do hope musk succeeds in creating a platform where everyone has a voice and hope that the E.U does not force twitter to continue the extreme censorship and only allow one political view/agenda to take over, this is wrong but typical of tyrants and we should stand up to tyrants.

TitianGerm

I don't think it's a coincidence that he was at the WC final on Sunday night with a few of the Saudi and Quarti investors and then on Monday he opens the poll.

My guess is he's been told to step down or they'll remove him. The poll is his way of saving face.

Oafley Jones

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120014802#Comment_120014802

He’s stayed well away from SpaceX for years. Gwynne Shotwell is the reason SpaceX is a success

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120016063#Comment_120016063

Oh I'd believe it, but he is the CEO on paper at least, so he gets all the credit 🙄

I heard somewhere that a lot of the execs in Tesla and SpaceX spend their time managing Musk and trying to stop him from torching the companies with some mad idea or making some bizarre promise to customers they can't possibly keep

Dunno how much truth their is but given the attrition rate of senior managers in Tesla he seems like a pretty horrible person to work for

Water2626262

The facts are whether you agree with them or not is that tying the brand to maga / anti vax sentiments is toxic to a large share of its demographic.

The world is more divisive as a lot of people feel the stakes are high whether it’s climate change, inequality or threats to democracy.

Elons pettiness and desperation online does not instil confidence. Starlink is one of many examples. He provided it to Ukrainians at the start of the invasion and got great press in doing so. He then later made appeasement comments to his followers and got a resounding backlash from many including Ukrainian government officials. His response was to threaten to pull the whole service. You can’t trust someone who operates like that. He could radically change the software or operating agreement on Tesla vehicles at a whim.

I think there still will be strong demand for EVS and Tesla will ride that wave but I don’t think you can deny this behaviour is damaging. Especially with the competition rapidly catching up.

If he hadn’t such a thirst for approval online I reckon Tesla would be doing a lot better.

That being said I don’t think he’s different from his competitors, they just keep the mask on. Elon is mask off and repulsive to a lot of people.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120016137#Comment_120016137

I've seen some horrible bosses in my day so I don't think it makes Musk any worse than any of those, In fact I'm sure he's better than at least 2 of my old bosses who were right sons of bitches.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120018669#Comment_120018669

I agree that Elon probably isn't worse than your average CEO, although lately he seems to be a bit more off the rails than usual.

I'm pretty sure any well staffed PR department has someone who briefs the CEO on exactly what to say and doesn't let them on social media unsupervised

Elon on the other hand take a slightly more hands on approach and we all get to experience the results

I'll confess I've been having a good laugh at his antics, but frankly I don't care about what happens on Twitter

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120018669#Comment_120018669

"The world is more divisive as a lot of people feel the stakes are high whether it’s climate change, inequality or threats to democracy."

Social media has caused a lot of People to get involved in stuff they wouldn't if it were not for social media, spreading ideologies that go against everything normal. I've seen and heard things the last year or two that have really shocked me and I know if it were not for social media it wouldn't be.

All social media has done as far as I can see is cause massive division.

liamog

Mod Note: @[Deleted User] take a week off this thread. Once again you've chosen to use it to discuss boards.ie moderation instead of the topic

Fantana2

Share price taking another big hit today, pressure on the board must be immense.

silver_sky

Q4 earnings call will be interesting to say the least

the_amazing_raisin

RTE news : Twitter CEO Musk to step down once replacement found

http://www.rte.ie/news/2022/1221/1343077-musk-twitter

And so much for that saga, it'll be interesting to see how the share price responds today

sh81722

As I said earlier the quicker somebody removes that phone from him the better. He has done amazing job with pointing SpaceX and Tesla to the right direction and more of that please and less Twitter. I hope he'll help driving the 4680, Model 2, and Cybertruck teams and that team planning trips to Mars at SpaceX. We need more positive stunts like that Roadster to space and less "alienate everybody" tweets.

Keeping a close eye on the TSLA to buy some when they have reached the bottom. Perhaps yesterday was it. Musk was very lucky selling many of his when he was forced to do so to pay for TWTR and the taxman.

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120021222#Comment_120021222

Tesla shares are currently trading at about $140, back in August, pre-twitter buyout, it was worth about $300 and in November 2021 it was at the peak at about $400

If he's offloading Twitter logic would say the share price will go up again

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120021597#Comment_120021597

I don't know.

Tesla is fundamentally overvalued - It was massively overvalued at ~$400 a share and it's still overvalued at it's current $140-ish level.

When you compare Tesla to any other car manufacturer the valuation is way off.

There are multiple companies that sell more cars , for more revenue and crucially for more profit than Tesla and they are valued way below where Tesla is , even today.

Now that all the "big guns" have largely caught up and perhaps even surpassed Tesla in terms of Electric vehicles there is only one way for the Tesla stock to go.

If Teslas stock was priced using the same core measures as are used to value Toyota , VW or GM for example , it would likely be another 40-50% cheaper than it is today even after losing 50%+ of its value this year.

Tesla will either get bought out by one of the big players or it will continue to shrink and consolidate and end up somewhere similar to a company like Jaguar or Volvo in terms of market share etc.

Not a bad place to be , but not anything remotely close to the most valuable company in the world as it was at one point in the last few years.

josip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120021703#Comment_120021703

What car companies have a greater profit margin per EV than Tesla?

Which of the big guns have surpassed them? Toyota with the wheels that fall off or VW where you have to park your car in the road away from your house to get good enough signal with just the right amount of charge and then do one of the key fob/fuse quirky trick things in order to install a software update on the 4th attempt?

(Disclaimer: I don't own a Tesla, I own a Leaf)

sh81722

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120021703#Comment_120021703

Tesla is in a different position though from the big players as they don't have any legacy operations like engine and transmission factories. And apart from Fremont all of their factories are state of the art and brand new with room to expand. And the fact that they do all the software inhouse allowed them to use non-automotive processors and other chips. So they have been very resilient to supply chain issues that the other manufactures have been suffering from. The high market valuation does reflect this and I feel majority of the recent slide has been due to their CEO loosing the focus. The fact is that the Tesla's profit margin percent per vehicle continues to be high thanks to most of their competition suffering from low production volumes due to supply chain issues they are having.

I fully believe we have not seen anywhere close to the peak Tesla sales yet and unless the customers get bored with their lineup there is so much scope for extra production thanks to the capable factories and lack of component supply issues. But they will need to continue to invest heavily to be able to be able to get into proper mass market. They'll need to challenge the Chinese makes like MG at the affordable end of the market. And they will need to get the 4680 process running properly to be able to fully launch the Semi (50k units a year) and to bring the Cybertruck in the market. Latter will very likely sell like hotcakes in their home market if the price and specs like the towing range are right. And for that they again need the 4680 cells. The fact is that Tesla cars are very well thought out and just work and have a very consistent build quality now. They suffer from niggles like the auto wipers and the fact that they shot themselves in foot by removing the proximity sensors but mechanically and electrically as well software-wise they are very good and highly reliable products.

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120021910#Comment_120021910

Tesla doesn't make the top ten in terms of total Revenue and now the big players are active in all of the vehicle segments with EV's.

Tesla are going to struggle to keep up with the sheer volume and capacity..

The majority of car sales are in the mid-sized family segment - The Golf/Passat , Focus/Mondeo and the equivalent sized MPV/SUV that most people buy in recent times.

If you are looking to replace a 6 year old Tiguan or Tuscon etc. you are not buying a Tesla - You are most likely going back to the same dealers and trading in for a new EV version on a finance deal.

Globally Tesla delivered a little less than 1M cars in 2021 , that doesn't get them into the Top 15 manufacturers by volume - 15th place was Mazda with 1.1M

By comparison , Toyota at number 1 sold almost 10M in the same period.

The don't have enough models/variants to get their sales into that sort of volume and historically they have struggled to bring new models to market particularly quickly.

In 5 years time , Toyota, VAG et all are still going to be turning out 9 or 10 million cars a year and the majority of them will be EV's.

Tesla might still have a better car , but most people aren't going to be buying them.

Look -I'm not saying that Tesla are going to go bust or anything , but the idea that they should be valued at many multiples of companies like VAG or Toyota etc. is not realistic.

josip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120022151#Comment_120022151

I don't disagree that Tesla were overvalued, but here's a (random) article from 2001.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jan-10-fi-10497-story.html

sh81722

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120022151#Comment_120022151

Tesla are a still a small player. But based on the fact that they sold about 0.5 million vehicles in 2019 and now over a million that sounds like a better trajectory compared to Toyota that actually produced just over 8 million cars in FY 2022, a bit better than they did in 2021, but both years were behind 2020.

Meanwhile tesla is growing a lot:

Their quarterly deliveries up to 2021:

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120021910#Comment_120021910

For years Tesla has been valued as a tech company, not as a car company. It's share price was based on the potential value of its self driving technology among other things

I would say it was also artificially high as well, investors trying to keep the stock price high and ensure their own profits

I think we're seeing that ending somewhat, self driving is way off and frankly if I was betting on future EV technology I'd be looking at BYD or another Chinese brand. They seem to be catching up to Tesla fast

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120022409#Comment_120022409

If share price is valued on self driving the company are going to go bust very soon. I think it's more valued on things like premium-end cars and super fast charging stations, some of which have exclusive use to their customers so I think they'll be ok

At the moment other manufacturers are struggling to produce cars, Tesla by comparison send a boatload to Ireland 3-4 times a year on schedule. Unless other manufacturers get into gear (pun intended) they should be fine also

josip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120022409#Comment_120022409

Would you trust your investment in a Chinese company? Xi might wake up some morning and decide he wanted to do another "Jack Ma".

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120022448#Comment_120022448

No but I don't trust it to Elon either 😁

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120022436#Comment_120022436

I didn't say they're going busy but I think the share price we're seeing now is probably more representative of Tesla's true value than before, when it was based largely on hype

That's not to say it won't go up, it'll be interesting to see how Elon's resignation from Twitter affects the price

MojoMaker

Who in their right mind would take over as CEO of Twitter with Musk remaining as an active leader within the business?

Maybe one of his buddies, but again would that really be an impartial and independent move?

February's poll: Should I fire the new CEO? (Vox populi, vox dei)

AndrewJRenko

Get your car serviced by a salesman, sure where else would you get it?

https://electrek.co/2022/06/16/tesla-untrained-employees-work-on-cars-service-problematic/

josip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120022695#Comment_120022695

I would expect nothing less from you Andrew and wrong as usual.

To be fair, they are focusing on easier tasks, like changing tires.