The shareholder vote is Elon's last hurrah. Now comes a tsunami of lawsuits and a world of hurt for the company, the directors, and especially the shareholders.
It should be noted that discovery in several of these suits will produce evidence that the SEC can use, so these are the classic "double jeopardy" types of cases that companies try so hard to avoid. Yet here we are (again).
Elon is cozying up to Trump. Not that the SEC does anything except Suck Elon's Cock, but they also absolutely will do nothing if it looks like Elon's buddy Trump is winning.
Is it usual for a CEO to write a 'school report' itemising everything he has done - major and minor - since 2018? It is also usual for the Chair of the Board to state it's time to honour the 'deal'? It was a social media blizzard.
And, of course, the whole point of the Tornetta Post-Trial Opinion is that when the same guy is in effect on both sides of the negotiating table, it's not a deal. It's a steal.
For Q2 earnings, the rabbits to be pulled include: 1) Inventory build held at high values doesn't hurt earnings 2) sell bitcoin for earnings pop 3) optimus pumps.
Great points.(1) I think Tesla will need to cut prices again before the end of June, so that should affect the inventory valuation. (2) Yeah, it feels like it's time to unleash the bitcoin gain. (3) Not sure how many people really believe the Optimus story.
1) They can use promotional interest rates instead of price cuts to maintain inventory valuation. Bring it all the way to 0% APR for 84 months before cutting inventory value. 2) Pop! 3) He has played this card so many times, and it has worked, that clearly cult members have been believing it. However he is becoming the boy who cried wolf on Optimus.
I forgot to mention -- I think Elon still has more revenue to recognize from FSD purchases. That's another reason the Q2 earnings call will go great despite awful results.
First, I've now fixed that bad link, and very much appreciate you calling it to my attention. Thank you.
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Tesla shareholders had a plain and simple Hobson's choice: Vote yes and just blindly hope that some positive vibes would lead Musk to spare a few crumbs from the table and focus a bit more on Tesla, or vote against it and suffer immediate short and likely medium term share price collapse.
Tesla's share price isn't moored to reality, it is predicated on the belief - staggering that it still exists even today - that Elon has the Midas Touch in business. With no Musk involvement, Tesla's share price would necessarily have to be based on its fundamentals, and with a massive PE ratio that presents a grim outlook.
I sold all my Tesla shares recently. I was never emotionally invested, and have long since lost any respect I had for Musk as a person, and post-Twitter - belief in him as a savvy businessman. He is a vindictive, petulant, unreliable, manchild who is nowadays fully corrosive to Tesla. The company would be better off without him in the long run, instead having a mature steward, but that's never going to happen short of a plane crash.
Tesla shareholders (institutionally at least, there are a number who have fully drunk the Kool-Aid and continue to do so) are prisoners of Musk. They have no real choice at all.
"JPMorgan Chase also pointed out that Musk's broader AI layout through xAI is expected to provide more innovative possibilities and growth momentum for Tesla's future development"
I feel a Tesla social media campaign began today. The amount of reckless claims being made by various “investors” or whatever we call social media or television financial folk, is like spiking right now. They’re all churning it out. Everything is a trillion dollar valuation, absolutely misleading factual statements, absurd obliviousness to the existing markets.
In my opinion this is orchestrated fraud, or atleast looks like it. Somebody is hunting for bag holders and I think I know exactly who but imma keep that to myself. Somebody who is getting torched on another thing that’s happening concurrently.
Entire world will be better off when this toilet flushes.
I think you’re exactly right about some folks tip toe-ing to the exits, especially when so many large holders publicized their nay vote. What a stupid idea all around. Nobody thought this thru.
The answer to the last part is not meant to be cryptic, just tip toeing myself. Feel free to delete this if you want. It involves factions, time based transactions, and I could be off on some deductions. Industry is inherently foggy. It requires a story, and if I’m wrong, the right answer is probably close by in this word salad of details:
My belief is that Tesla and GameStop represent different sides of an ongoing financial war that began in earnest in 2020. It involves other plays and tickers, but simplifying for this post. Not black and white, many play both sides, some change, but there are opposing entrenched sides to each. Lots are trapped on both sides. They share a lot of similarities: absurdly aggressive positions, irresponsible prime brokers, heightened interaction with the retail investor through social media and financial media, political interventions, wild exaggerations, and positions that force future action.
They’re both situations where initially prime brokers took the same positions as their client firms (Hi Credit Suisse), resulting in both being extreme squeeze situations that played out (Bye Credit Suisse). They also both have looong periods of false price discovery on both the bear and bull side. If either situation were hedged properly and had bonafide market making, neither squeeze would have occurred.
(Spoiler) It’s almost like they share a market maker who likes to use influence.
Tesla began its push up in Dec 2019, but wasn’t squeezed yet. It took 1 filing in early 2020 from the guessed entity who picked a side, loaded on calls between dec and the squeeze action so much they had to file, to start teslas squeeze proper in 2020 - squeezing more or less all the way until mid Jan 2021 when GameStop event began to do what it did in 2021. This was a counter attack, then after that situation - 3 months, Tesla returned to its squeeze movement until it just got too high to sustain, and it was harvested.
This was a ——major—— war. Tons of serious damage, some fatal damage. Tons on both sides. A ton of innocents, lots of market plumbing took damage too. Congress was involved, the SEC and intl agencies, the fed, everybody. These folk are all political but the war is above that stuff, the trapped entities are extremely powerful on both sides.
Hundreds of billions changed sides at various times. Tons of money trapped, tons lost in inefficient transactions, tons taken by retail, tons lost by them too. I’d guess retail came out positive as that directly correlates to Tesla being able to sell every car they made. The periods of non price discovery allowed this. For examples: Tesla bulls were able to load up way too much in 2018 and 2019. GameStop bulls were able to load up way too much in 2020 and the last 12 months. Tesla bears are being unfairly scorched right now. Etc. This is why we typically don’t let market makers trade on the side against the market.
This war is the primary source of our current global inflation, the source of why every share buyback is maxed, and why disinformation is currently maxed.
A huge portion of all this trading was stashed into multiyear swaps to roll the volatility/risk down the road and maintain sanity for awhile, but those came due or are coming due.
My perception of the current GameStop event is that recently a huge swap expired and a bidding war occurred, but a major bidding entity could not gather what they required and surrendered, which resulted in GameStops recent 2.1 billion dollar issuance filling in 3 days. I think the firm that would be motivated to pump Tesla today is the firm on the losing side of that battle. The retail trader Keith Gill making his options public is what stopped it: continued bidding was fruitless. Elegant, whether intentional or not. A lot of evidence points to this including a change to board rules and dual share issuance, options loading especially deep OTM, volume history the last 180d, extreme OTC order routing while consolidated audit trail live, changes in media coverage, etc. Regardless, GameStop’s improved balance sheet from the dual issuance changes the previous valuation - a valuation that is tied to many multiyear swaps used to relieve 2021.
The guessed entity was forced to dilute itself after the 2021 gamestop event for the first time ever - these dollars were used to push Tesla up and claw back $. It also had to bail out 3 friends. It also appears to have gotten a government bailout.
Mr. Musk can be seen at various events, such as F1 races, the Super Bowl, etc, with the lead of this group. They’re the group that was kicked out of Chicago, the group that lost a board battle with Disney to Iger, the group that lost a bid for China’s CS wealth management group. (Also lost 2 sports teams, 2 newspapers, a presidential candidate, it’s a long list) Mr. Desantis likes their airplane a lot - it’s available anytime he needs to be somewhere. They seem to really enjoy using social media to influence financial transactions. They like to run bucket shops that pretend to be lit exchanges. They’re, in my opinion, the source of a lot of tragic market conditions, a lot of unnecessary volatility, a lot of deception, a lot of fraud, such as my guess that they’re trying to convince random people that they should yolo into Tesla today.
My belief is Tesla and GameStop will continue to exist as volatile buddies until this participant either wins or is sent home. It’s gonna be harder to close this box than it was in 2021. Its gonna be hard to manage 2021 leftovers. It’s gonna be hard to pump Tesla….its looking so bad, whereas GameStop looks to have grabbed a new floor significantly above its previous. We shall see. If I am right, a dilution should be requested here shortly, whether it will be filled will drive the future. I think it’s possible they’ll have a hard time finding more folk who are cool with setting more money on fire.
I don't doubt there has been some truly wild options action with Tesla. I don't doubt that some parties, somewhere, have made efforts to push the price around. My simple thought is that one or more significant holders of Tesla stock may have decided that, with Musk's latest antics, enough is enough.
As I said, almost impossible to imagine. Massive confusion about the issued & outstanding share count. Lawsuits all over from shareholders who oppose the board's action. Huge impediment to any capital transactions. Widespread condemnation from the legal community. All while Tesla's fundamentals continue to deteriorate. I know of no precedent.
It varies widely, depending on the size of the company, the industry it operates in, the number of directors and officers, the company's risk profile, potential exposure to litigation, etc.
Most of the policies I know of for public companies are at least $10 million. Considering only the legal fees, Tesla needs a heck of a lot more than that. (And beware the fraud exclusions...)
$10M sounds like nothing for Tesla. Elon is smart enough to know he will get sued for his fraud. Would anything have stopped him from purchasing a $1B policy?
Plenty of cultists across all industries likely including insurance. At this point, though, surely you're right and underwriters have learned their lessons.
Yes, and that happened for a while, but later Tesla again picked up third-party D&O insurance. Obviously, I would be curious to know what is in place now, including limits & exclusions (though exclusions are pretty standard).
It should be noted that discovery in several of these suits will produce evidence that the SEC can use, so these are the classic "double jeopardy" types of cases that companies try so hard to avoid. Yet here we are (again).
Elon is cozying up to Trump. Not that the SEC does anything except Suck Elon's Cock, but they also absolutely will do nothing if it looks like Elon's buddy Trump is winning.
Our system may be sorely tested by the political pressure Musk will bring to bear on the Delaware courts.
Musk better make substantial contributions to 'Dark Money' outfits supporting Trump. If Musk is a piker, then all bets are off.
Yeah, he is. But when you elicit this stuff as court records, it's very damning and it does a lot of the work for the SEC.
Is it usual for a CEO to write a 'school report' itemising everything he has done - major and minor - since 2018? It is also usual for the Chair of the Board to state it's time to honour the 'deal'? It was a social media blizzard.
I've never seen anything like it.
And, of course, the whole point of the Tornetta Post-Trial Opinion is that when the same guy is in effect on both sides of the negotiating table, it's not a deal. It's a steal.
Musk is a mater engineer of fraud. Fraud, at this point, still creates alpha.
Great work here, sir Larry. I don’t see a rabbit to be pulled - the cybertruck being a flop being the last escape rope
For Q2 earnings, the rabbits to be pulled include: 1) Inventory build held at high values doesn't hurt earnings 2) sell bitcoin for earnings pop 3) optimus pumps.
Great points.(1) I think Tesla will need to cut prices again before the end of June, so that should affect the inventory valuation. (2) Yeah, it feels like it's time to unleash the bitcoin gain. (3) Not sure how many people really believe the Optimus story.
1) They can use promotional interest rates instead of price cuts to maintain inventory valuation. Bring it all the way to 0% APR for 84 months before cutting inventory value. 2) Pop! 3) He has played this card so many times, and it has worked, that clearly cult members have been believing it. However he is becoming the boy who cried wolf on Optimus.
I forgot to mention -- I think Elon still has more revenue to recognize from FSD purchases. That's another reason the Q2 earnings call will go great despite awful results.
Thanks for writing this. I've subscribed and pledged!
btw, you have a "private link" in "I told you so".
Toby,
First, I've now fixed that bad link, and very much appreciate you calling it to my attention. Thank you.
Second, I appreciate the subscription and pledge. Just so you know, my Substack is and will remain free (unless I'm forced to monetize it by the platform, in which case it will be as inexpensive as I can possibly make it). So, best of both worlds: a thoughtful sacrifice on your part that, it turns out, won't cost you anything!
Tesla shareholders had a plain and simple Hobson's choice: Vote yes and just blindly hope that some positive vibes would lead Musk to spare a few crumbs from the table and focus a bit more on Tesla, or vote against it and suffer immediate short and likely medium term share price collapse.
Tesla's share price isn't moored to reality, it is predicated on the belief - staggering that it still exists even today - that Elon has the Midas Touch in business. With no Musk involvement, Tesla's share price would necessarily have to be based on its fundamentals, and with a massive PE ratio that presents a grim outlook.
I sold all my Tesla shares recently. I was never emotionally invested, and have long since lost any respect I had for Musk as a person, and post-Twitter - belief in him as a savvy businessman. He is a vindictive, petulant, unreliable, manchild who is nowadays fully corrosive to Tesla. The company would be better off without him in the long run, instead having a mature steward, but that's never going to happen short of a plane crash.
Tesla shareholders (institutionally at least, there are a number who have fully drunk the Kool-Aid and continue to do so) are prisoners of Musk. They have no real choice at all.
I mostly agree; there was a huge coercive element to Musk's pitch for the vote.
Glad to learn you sold the stock. I hope it was profitable.
"JPMorgan Chase also pointed out that Musk's broader AI layout through xAI is expected to provide more innovative possibilities and growth momentum for Tesla's future development"
Seriously?! Dimon is such a simp.
JPMorgan understands it's always polite to try to find something nice to say.
Did JPM explain what it meant by "innovative possibilities"? Or in what area this "growth momentum" will come?
The only hard news is that the robotaxis are years away.
The main problem is Musk's serial abuse of rights, whenever he wants.
I feel a Tesla social media campaign began today. The amount of reckless claims being made by various “investors” or whatever we call social media or television financial folk, is like spiking right now. They’re all churning it out. Everything is a trillion dollar valuation, absolutely misleading factual statements, absurd obliviousness to the existing markets.
In my opinion this is orchestrated fraud, or atleast looks like it. Somebody is hunting for bag holders and I think I know exactly who but imma keep that to myself. Somebody who is getting torched on another thing that’s happening concurrently.
Entire world will be better off when this toilet flushes.
Interesting. There is so much we don't know about the Tesla trading, including especially options trading.
I would guess some institutions are going to tiptoe to the exit. Would enjoy learning at some point who you think is behind the current campaign.
I think you’re exactly right about some folks tip toe-ing to the exits, especially when so many large holders publicized their nay vote. What a stupid idea all around. Nobody thought this thru.
The answer to the last part is not meant to be cryptic, just tip toeing myself. Feel free to delete this if you want. It involves factions, time based transactions, and I could be off on some deductions. Industry is inherently foggy. It requires a story, and if I’m wrong, the right answer is probably close by in this word salad of details:
My belief is that Tesla and GameStop represent different sides of an ongoing financial war that began in earnest in 2020. It involves other plays and tickers, but simplifying for this post. Not black and white, many play both sides, some change, but there are opposing entrenched sides to each. Lots are trapped on both sides. They share a lot of similarities: absurdly aggressive positions, irresponsible prime brokers, heightened interaction with the retail investor through social media and financial media, political interventions, wild exaggerations, and positions that force future action.
They’re both situations where initially prime brokers took the same positions as their client firms (Hi Credit Suisse), resulting in both being extreme squeeze situations that played out (Bye Credit Suisse). They also both have looong periods of false price discovery on both the bear and bull side. If either situation were hedged properly and had bonafide market making, neither squeeze would have occurred.
(Spoiler) It’s almost like they share a market maker who likes to use influence.
Tesla began its push up in Dec 2019, but wasn’t squeezed yet. It took 1 filing in early 2020 from the guessed entity who picked a side, loaded on calls between dec and the squeeze action so much they had to file, to start teslas squeeze proper in 2020 - squeezing more or less all the way until mid Jan 2021 when GameStop event began to do what it did in 2021. This was a counter attack, then after that situation - 3 months, Tesla returned to its squeeze movement until it just got too high to sustain, and it was harvested.
This was a ——major—— war. Tons of serious damage, some fatal damage. Tons on both sides. A ton of innocents, lots of market plumbing took damage too. Congress was involved, the SEC and intl agencies, the fed, everybody. These folk are all political but the war is above that stuff, the trapped entities are extremely powerful on both sides.
Hundreds of billions changed sides at various times. Tons of money trapped, tons lost in inefficient transactions, tons taken by retail, tons lost by them too. I’d guess retail came out positive as that directly correlates to Tesla being able to sell every car they made. The periods of non price discovery allowed this. For examples: Tesla bulls were able to load up way too much in 2018 and 2019. GameStop bulls were able to load up way too much in 2020 and the last 12 months. Tesla bears are being unfairly scorched right now. Etc. This is why we typically don’t let market makers trade on the side against the market.
This war is the primary source of our current global inflation, the source of why every share buyback is maxed, and why disinformation is currently maxed.
A huge portion of all this trading was stashed into multiyear swaps to roll the volatility/risk down the road and maintain sanity for awhile, but those came due or are coming due.
My perception of the current GameStop event is that recently a huge swap expired and a bidding war occurred, but a major bidding entity could not gather what they required and surrendered, which resulted in GameStops recent 2.1 billion dollar issuance filling in 3 days. I think the firm that would be motivated to pump Tesla today is the firm on the losing side of that battle. The retail trader Keith Gill making his options public is what stopped it: continued bidding was fruitless. Elegant, whether intentional or not. A lot of evidence points to this including a change to board rules and dual share issuance, options loading especially deep OTM, volume history the last 180d, extreme OTC order routing while consolidated audit trail live, changes in media coverage, etc. Regardless, GameStop’s improved balance sheet from the dual issuance changes the previous valuation - a valuation that is tied to many multiyear swaps used to relieve 2021.
The guessed entity was forced to dilute itself after the 2021 gamestop event for the first time ever - these dollars were used to push Tesla up and claw back $. It also had to bail out 3 friends. It also appears to have gotten a government bailout.
Mr. Musk can be seen at various events, such as F1 races, the Super Bowl, etc, with the lead of this group. They’re the group that was kicked out of Chicago, the group that lost a board battle with Disney to Iger, the group that lost a bid for China’s CS wealth management group. (Also lost 2 sports teams, 2 newspapers, a presidential candidate, it’s a long list) Mr. Desantis likes their airplane a lot - it’s available anytime he needs to be somewhere. They seem to really enjoy using social media to influence financial transactions. They like to run bucket shops that pretend to be lit exchanges. They’re, in my opinion, the source of a lot of tragic market conditions, a lot of unnecessary volatility, a lot of deception, a lot of fraud, such as my guess that they’re trying to convince random people that they should yolo into Tesla today.
My belief is Tesla and GameStop will continue to exist as volatile buddies until this participant either wins or is sent home. It’s gonna be harder to close this box than it was in 2021. Its gonna be hard to manage 2021 leftovers. It’s gonna be hard to pump Tesla….its looking so bad, whereas GameStop looks to have grabbed a new floor significantly above its previous. We shall see. If I am right, a dilution should be requested here shortly, whether it will be filled will drive the future. I think it’s possible they’ll have a hard time finding more folk who are cool with setting more money on fire.
obviously, lots of wheels within wheels here.
I don't doubt there has been some truly wild options action with Tesla. I don't doubt that some parties, somewhere, have made efforts to push the price around. My simple thought is that one or more significant holders of Tesla stock may have decided that, with Musk's latest antics, enough is enough.
> If the board actually takes such a step, then chaos will erupt on a scale almost impossible to imagine.
What does this chaos look like because this scenario seems likely.
As I said, almost impossible to imagine. Massive confusion about the issued & outstanding share count. Lawsuits all over from shareholders who oppose the board's action. Huge impediment to any capital transactions. Widespread condemnation from the legal community. All while Tesla's fundamentals continue to deteriorate. I know of no precedent.
Sounds like a Musk operation to me.
This is a remarkably astute observation. Likely indeed or guaranteed.
I haven’t shorted Tesla is a while - but it may be, as they saying went, safe to get back in the water.
fwiw, I haven't been short Tesla for years. (Though I did have a bit of profitable fun betting Musk would be forced to acquire Twitter.)
Be very careful with Tesla. It remains untethered from fundamentals. It remains immune to terrible news.
Yes - I also took a piece of that one - the work the chancellor daily did on that case made it a pretty easy bet.
case in point last earnings was terrible yet the pump went to the moon.
What would be a typical D&O Insurance Coverage limit for a $500B company?
It varies widely, depending on the size of the company, the industry it operates in, the number of directors and officers, the company's risk profile, potential exposure to litigation, etc.
Most of the policies I know of for public companies are at least $10 million. Considering only the legal fees, Tesla needs a heck of a lot more than that. (And beware the fraud exclusions...)
$10M sounds like nothing for Tesla. Elon is smart enough to know he will get sued for his fraud. Would anything have stopped him from purchasing a $1B policy?
I have to believe that in D&O underwriting circles, Musk and Tesla are poison. The premiums would be high and the coverage limits low.
Plenty of cultists across all industries likely including insurance. At this point, though, surely you're right and underwriters have learned their lessons.
Didn’t Elon elect to self-insure after 420 BS?
Yes, and that happened for a while, but later Tesla again picked up third-party D&O insurance. Obviously, I would be curious to know what is in place now, including limits & exclusions (though exclusions are pretty standard).
Do you have a source on this? I sure hope you're right!