Wednesday, December 18, 2019

Tesla Enterprise Value Exceeds $80 Billion Despite "Pending or Prospective" FBI Investigation Regarding "Drug Cartels and Accounting Fraud"

Just in case anyone was doubting that we are living through the biggest bubble of all time, here is a chart of the Tesla enterprise value:


which just hit $81 billion. And here is a recent letter from the FBI regarding a FOIA request into any investigations regarding "drug cartels and accounting fraud" at Tesla:


21 comments:

eahilf said...

So I wasn't following it closely, but I see Musk, who seems like a real Arschloch to me, prevailed in the "pedo guy" defamation case -- the following story contains passages I find almost unbelievable:

Tesla CEO Elon Musk did not defame British cave explorer with 'pedo guy' tweet, jury finds

Elon Musk did not defame a British cave explorer when he called him "pedo guy" in an angry tweet, a Los Angeles jury found Friday. ... Musk, who said his stock in Tesla and SpaceX is worth about $20 billion, insisted in his testimony that the phrase he tweeted off-the-cuff "was obviously a flippant insult, and no one interpreted it to mean pedophile." ... A jury of five women and three men deliberated for less than an hour in the afternoon in U.S. District Court. ... Jury foreman Joshua Jones said the panel decided that Unsworth's lawyers spent too much time trying to appeal to their emotions and not concentrating on the evidence. ... "The failure probably happened because they didn't focus on the tweets," Jones said after the verdict was announced. "I think they tried to get our emotions involved in it. In a court of law you have to prove your case, which they did not prove."

Dunno, but seems to me "the evidence" was the "pedo guy" tweet, which was never in question, oder? -- also Musk appears to be someone who's used to casually lying and having everyone believe his lies.

Whenever I hear "jury of peers" I do a mental "LOL", because odds are you will get a jury full of idiots -- the lesson here is you want to stay as far away from the "justice" system as you can.

eahilf said...

Tesla has said it wants to build a factory near Berlin (where I live), and the Germans are as close to excited about that as Germans can get -- Berlin is generally regarded as a shithole because it is one (every Germans knows that the phrase "Berliner Verhältnisse" = Berlin conditions means, and it's not good), so this is also seen specifically as a big plus for the city.

But since the story first came out you don't see too many updates on it -- here is one which basically says an agreement to sell Tesla the 300 hectare site has not been finalized:

Tesla-Kaufvertrag noch nicht abgeschlossen: Altlasten

I try to talk to people about Tesla and suggest it may not exactly be the best company to partner with (there will be significant concessions of course) on a project like this, but it does no good -- the name Tesla enjoys a certain cachet, and then there's this Greta-esque "Klimanotstand" bullshit that German politicians are using to create a moral panic.

It's all pretty bizarre really.

eahilf said...

"It's all pretty bizarre really."

Watch the short video here --> link -- it shows a Ladestation auf Mallorca, where they installed a diesel ship motor to power a generator to charge the electric vehicles -- at the end the guy says "Herzlich willkommen in Absurdistan", which I think doesn't really need a translation.

Anonymous said...

If Musk is putting in a factory in Berlin, it's going to mean a lot of amputations and chemical fires for Berliners. There are fires and amputations all the time at the California and Nevada factories that don't make the press.

eahilf said...

@Anonymous: Do you know of any news reports about such incidents? -- I know you hear from time to time that working in virtually any capacity in Tesla auto assembly is fairly unpleasant.

Btw CP, I wanted to ask if you've covered WeWork at all, including SoftBank's involvement? -- ZH did/does so pretty heavily and with a lot of Schadenfreude.

Working in Mobilfunk I'm familiar with SoftBank due to their purchase a few years ago of ARM Holdings (which I found a bit strange), as well as their own approval process a modem must go through in order to operate in an SBM (SoftBank Mobile) network.

CP said...

Mentioned WeWork a number of times in the links:

http://www.creditbubblestocks.com/search?q=wework

When Adam Neumann pitches potential investors on his startup, WeWork Cos., he likes to rev them up with a jaunt through his company's shared office spaces. Before arriving, the 38-year-old chief executive typically sends staffers a directive: "Activate the space." WeWork’s employees swarm a lounge to host an impromptu party with pizza, ice cream or margaritas. When Mr. Neumann and his guests walk in, he often remarks how the office always seems filled with life, according to several former employees. [WSJ]

Some SoftBank executives are balking at taking on large personal loans to buy into the Japanese group's portfolio of technology companies, an investment scheme described internally as a test of loyalty to founder Masayoshi Son. The scheme encourages participants to take a huge personal bet on SoftBank's $97bn Vision Fund — the vehicle which has come under intense scrutiny after the collapse in value of WeWork, the shared office provider that is one of its bigger investments. SoftBank offers the loans on a sliding scale depending on salary and length of tenure. Some executives have been encouraged to borrow more than 10 times their base salary, according to people familiar with the situation. [FT]

Some of the outfits in the South Williamsburg, Brooklyn, location trade in worldly goods, like Conscious Step, a sock company that donates a share of its proceeds to charity; Carvana, an online used-car dealership; Motorino, a pizza micro-chain; and Visual Magnetics, which sells idea boards. Others are entirely ether-based, such as One Door, a company that offers cloud-centric "merchandising execution"; Mish Guru, a Snapchat-focused "management & analytics platform"; and DevTribe, a social-media consultancy seeking "influencers looking to increase revenue through personal branding." There's at least one self-employed "vlogger and design consultant," as well as Turnkey & Bespoke, which manages retail construction projects, be they pop-up shops, promotional booths, or, yes, offices inside WeWork buildings. There's also a company called NSFW, whose function might be described as "facilitating curated gratification." (It puts on swingers' parties.) [Esquire]

eahilf said...

Just looked at the TSLA chart (pay little attention to the company): at the start of Oct it was $240, today $405 -- for those doing the math, that's almost +70% since the start of Oct -- must've been those broken windows in the Cybertruck demo.

The market seems to be generally in another manic phase right now, going up pretty much every day it seems -- it makes me shake my head in wonder, and brings on more stronger than usual the feeling of 'This cannot go on much longer' -- I remember last year in the Fall the market was also fairly strong, and then last year at this time it was correcting hard.

eahilf said...

link

If I find myself hoping hoping hoping again and again and again that the market will CRASH right after Trump tweets about another all-time high, does that make me a bad person?

Anonymous said...

Seeing friends that have reproduced, well it looks like hell on earth - srs.

House looks like a bombsite
Car replaced with minivan
Wife ages 5 years in one and bulked 2 dress sizes
Wife cuts hair short and looks like katy perry post feminism
Stuck in soul destroying jobs to pay the bills
Pretty sure most husbands haven't got laid in the last month
Parents desperate to dump the kids on activities/people at the weekend, dreading school holidays

This is all before the daughter turns into an instasloot/camwhore and son turn into an incel. This is what makes me lol at parents with young kids that say it is OK, you ain't seen nothing yet. They'll be using you as an atm/taxi service while saying how much they hate you pretty soon.

eahilf said...

Even Musk is having trouble believing it:

"Whoa … the stock is so high lol" --> link

eahilf said...

Is data showing the average holding period for a stock available? -- would be interesting to see that for TSLA -- it's natural to wonder about short-term and day-trading in such a stock -- per this info, short interest is declining (no surprise for a stock that won't stop going up).

eahilf said...

link --> The stock is the product and it’s doing fantastic. Think how much TSLA stock you could have bought instead of a broken car.

LOL

eahilf said...

I suppose you're familiar with this Vanity Fair piece --> “HE’S FULL OF SHIT”: HOW ELON MUSK FOOLED INVESTORS, BILKED TAXPAYERS, AND GAMBLED TESLA TO SAVE SOLARCITY

Now, around 10 p.m., his phone rang. The call was from an unmarked number. Scott answered. ... “It’s the clown,” the person at the other end informed him.

Seems there is a whole TSLA skeptic subculture out there ...

Anonymous said...

Eahilf,

I do not have news about the amputations. I heard it through the tech grapevine. You can probably get some reports through the Nevada workers' compensation or worker safety bureaucracy if it hasn't been bribed. Fires were common at their Fremont plant, as they are on the freeways when Teslas burn after crashing and the occupants are consumed because the fire department cannot put them out. There are news reports about both, but the press tends to treat Elon Musk as if he were a god. The praise is fawning and the criticism non-existent.

@anonymous,

Parenting can be very rewarding and none of the things you describe above if you use old-fashioned methods (read John Rosemond) and act like a man of the house instead of a second-rate mommy. It also helps to live near family for support. Moving around the world to get your next minor promotion and 5% pay raise at GloboMegaCorp is not conducive to family. Neither are modern parenting and family assumptions. I can help you with a bibliography if interested. HTH.

CP said...

Please post the bibliography.

Merry Christmas.

Anonymous said...

Get over the terror of infants:
https://www.amazon.com/Happiest-Block-Revised-Updated-Second/dp/0553393235/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=5+S+harvey+karp&qid=1577319267&sr=8-1

How to discipline (his potty training book is good too):
https://www.amazon.com/Well-Behaved-Child-Discipline-Really-Works/dp/0849947154/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=well+behaved+child&qid=1577319223&sr=8-1
https://www.amazon.com/Making-Terrible-Twos-Terrific-Rosemond/dp/1449421601/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=terrible+twos+terrific&qid=1577319244&sr=8-2

I also recommend Lenore Skenazy (Free Range Kids), Mike Lanza (Playborhood), and Leonard Sax (The Collapse of Parenting)

How to be a man:
https://www.amazon.com/Man-House-Handbook-Building-Shelter/dp/1532614772/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=cr+wiley&qid=1577319324&sr=8-2
https://www.amazon.com/Household-War-Cosmos-C-Wiley/dp/1947644912/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=cr+wiley&qid=1577319346&sr=8-1

Sample:
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/gloryseed/author/crwiley/

Get back-issues of "The Masculinist" by Aaron Renn also.

strength/conditioning: Scott Abel (The Abel Approach, The Cycle Diet)
Violence: James LaFond and Tony Blauer
RooshV's book "Game" is probably good too. I haven't read it. I figured out the principles of game the hard way and they must be applied in a marriage also.

Ignore almost everything else from Baby Boomers except those mentioned above.

Anonymous said...

I figured out the principles of game the hard way and they must be applied in a marriage also.

Yeah, that's actually a powerful argument against your idea that family life is rewarding. If you have to "game" your wife to keep her happy and keep your marriage together in the current cultural/legal environment, then you're running a never-ending treadmill. Raising your children well and shielding them from the toxic ambient culture is hard enough by itself; if you also have to cater endlessly to the whims of a much larger child in order to keep your family stable, then that's a bridge too far for me.

Anonymous said...

@anonymous,

I was merely saying marriage and children can be rewarding, not what you should do.

Family-minded men should consider emigrating to countries that are friendlier to men, or staying here and trying to reform the laws, or having a family anyway in spite of the laws, or not having a family because of the laws. Either way, life is a treadmill of futility and toil. This is only rectified in the age to come.

The deck is definitely stacked against you and you have no legal support from the government or most churches (quite the opposite). Your options as a man are to be good at the 3 Ps and use persuasion/manipulation (game) and training your wife to be more Godly and Biblical.

The above are tools you can use in reality given our legal environment, not what you should do. My worldview is grounded in Creation (Genesis 1-2); yours is obviously not.

Anonymous said...

Kids are a massive responsibility and a massive gamble. When people envision parenthood, they think of a good kid who grows up in a stable household and becomes a success.

I don't think anyone fully anticipates or considers that their child may be an extremely flawed human being. It can be being born with a severe handicap/mental illness that means you'll have to take care of them until the day you die then arrange caretakers for after you're gone.

Or having a little delinquent that you simply can't do anything with. Maybe he'll become a druggie. Maybe he'll become a criminal and just victimize everyone in the family and around him.

Let's not even mention the rampant cases of divorce and split families where the father is paying alimony and child support for a kid he barely gets to see. Mothers often try to poison the child against the father. Etc.

I won't even get into the fact that having a wife and kids does not mean you'll die in the company of family. By the time you're old, your family very well may be split and hate each other. And you may die alone after a lifetime of drama and strife. Working in law enforcement, I've gotten to deal with families that have those issues. If I met the right person I might take the risk of a family/kids. But I typically over-analyze everything which is why I can only see the negative side of that life.

eahilf said...

Seeing friends that have reproduced, well it looks like hell on earth - srs.

Sad -- a couple of links:

#1

#2

CP said...

Eric, that's powerful, thank you.

Anonymous guy - what kind of law enforcement are you doing? The outlier cases that you mention are certainly real, but do you think there is a selection bias that's unduly coloring your perspective?