Elon Musk Calls Boss of Tesla Troll Who's Heavily Invested In Oil Industry (electrek.co) 445
Okian Warrior shares a report from Electrek, written by Fred Lambert: One of Tesla's biggest anonymous trolls/shorts has been doxxed as an investment manager heavily invested in the oil industry. He has now deleted his Twitter account, which he used to promote his blog posts about Tesla and attack anyone saying anything that could be perceived as positive on Tesla, after Tesla CEO Elon Musk reportedly called his boss to complain about his behavior.
We are talking about "Montana Skeptic" who has been using Seeking Alpha, a financial blog aggregator, and Twitter to push the bear case on Tesla for the past 3 years. Hiding behind his anonymous persona on social media, Montana Skeptic went beyond just pushing the bear case. He also used the platforms to send insults and attacks to Tesla bulls, bloggers, YouTubers, and reporters discussing anything that he saw as potentially being positive for Tesla, including [this author] on numerous occasions to the point where I had to block him. But now that his real identity has been revealed to be Larry Fossi, a managing director at Rahr Enterprise, which is reportedly heavily invested in oil, we learn that his motivations could have originated from other reasons.
We are talking about "Montana Skeptic" who has been using Seeking Alpha, a financial blog aggregator, and Twitter to push the bear case on Tesla for the past 3 years. Hiding behind his anonymous persona on social media, Montana Skeptic went beyond just pushing the bear case. He also used the platforms to send insults and attacks to Tesla bulls, bloggers, YouTubers, and reporters discussing anything that he saw as potentially being positive for Tesla, including [this author] on numerous occasions to the point where I had to block him. But now that his real identity has been revealed to be Larry Fossi, a managing director at Rahr Enterprise, which is reportedly heavily invested in oil, we learn that his motivations could have originated from other reasons.
Clarifications: (Score:5, Informative)
1) Montana Skeptic has (via intermediaries) presented two entirely different scenarios for why he left Twitter. One was that he was just leaving to spend more time focused on his investments, and it had nothing to do with outside pressure. The other is that Musk called his boss and his boss made him quit. Given his penchant for spinning conspiracy theories... take whichever one you want with a grain of salt.
2) There's a heavy dose of irony, in that just a few days ago Montana Skeptic was part of the troll attacks against Pulitzer-prize winning auto journalist Dan Neil (mad that he wrote a glowing review of the Model 3 in the Wall Street Journal) which ultimately led to Dan deleting his twitter account. He wrote a gloating post after they succeeded, which is kind of funny in light of recent events.
3) Fun Fact: Fossi (aka Montana Skeptic)'s employer is Stewart Rahl - a guy often described as Trump's only true friend, inflappably loyal. His office is in Trump Tower, two floors below Trump's.
Shorts are running scared... (Score:5, Interesting)
Tesla has been hit with a torrent of fake news recently, trying to drive the stock down.
Most obviously and recently was the following:
1) Someone (not Tesla) posted that 23% of Tesla reservations have been cancelled [techspot.com].
2) Based on #1, an analyst downgraded the stock [marketwatch.com] from "hold" to "underperform".
3) Tesla stock plummeted
4) Tesla notices #1 above and responded:
Dunno where this bs is coming from. Who knows about the future, but last week we had over 2000 S/X and 5000 Model 3 *new* net orders. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 20, 2018
(Note: Tesla makes about 6,000 cars/month, so an increase of 7000 cars puts them even further behind on reservations. And as noted in the link below, they have not started showing them in stores yet, so Tesla has yet to tap the "drive before they buy" potential pool of customers.)
Word on the street is that shorts are running scared [cleantechnica.com], doing everything they can to drive down the stock price. Including insider sabotage, misleading financial spin, and online harassment such as the OP.
This is basically the last-ditch effort of Tesla bears to drive the stock down. Once the next two quarters financials are in, there will be no case for shorting Tesla stock whatsoever.
My disclosure (Score:5, Interesting)
Someone else made a valid point about disclosing biases, so here is mine: I own Tesla stock, and I'm "long" on it.
I originally wanted to do some study of the stock market, and I purchased the stock to make the study "valuable" to me.
That turned out to be a lucky choice because Tesla is the hurricane eye of controversial stock market reporting. It's the perfect test case for deciding whether stock market news reports, statistics, and opinions have any informational value.
In any event, be aware that I own some shares and have an interest in seeing Tesla succeed.
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Same here. I've been talking about Tesla for years, and didn't own any Tesla stock until this spring, when Tesla fell down to $263. But after years and years of talking about it, I finally decided to put my money where my mouth was, as the short theses had gotten so ridiculous. Listening to them was often like listening to the Pizzagate crowd - just one silly conspiracy theory after the next.
Of course, I mention this fact in almost every thread on Tesla, so it should hardly be a surprise to anyone. ;)
Re:My disclosure (Score:4, Interesting)
I've been talking about Tesla for years, and didn't own any Tesla stock until this spring, when Tesla fell down to $263. ...
I missed the early part of public Tesla trading and had meant to buy, but at the time I was so busy I just forgot about it until it was too late.
Then the news was all about Telsa Fires! Fires! Every Tesla car ever made is bursting into flame! Remember that?
The stock tanked for a while and that's when I bought. Never regretted it. Wish I had bought more but I didn't have the cash. But it was an easy decision because the negative hype was just so obvious that it just couldn't control the stock price forever. And it didn't.
I live in Tesla's neighborhood. My housekeeper's husband works there as a welder. Every day I drive down Kato road. These days it is lined with car-transport trucks either loaded or waiting to be loaded. They have no place to park all the trucks they need and these trucks are parked about 1Km from the plant and that's the closest parking.
I also talk to their vendors. LIke PCB contract manufacturers and metal shops. Tesla is not well liked in that regard because they are aggressive on price and very demanding. Some local shops turn down their business because if they took it they would use most/all of their capacity on Tesla and pretty much neglect the rest of their customer base. The shops that did take their business are in good times right now and if it lasts it will turn out they made the right decision.
For now, the forecast is good.
Tesla could have a force majure type of event or some major disaster that can bring them down, at least for a while. Their (Musk's) cash flow management requires nerves of steel but they seem to be making it work. In spite of the CONSTANT posts I see here about how they are "out of cash" and will have to shut their doors yada yada. Yeah the risk is NOT nonexistent and NOT negligible but the counter to that is very convincing:
1. Technological leadership.
2. Market space leadership.
3. Production leadership.
4. Big Backlog of Orders.
Call Musk delusional or badly behaved all you want but the above points are what is driving his stock price.
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Why would you (a presumably average income person) "invest" in Tesla? I truly don't understand it. Is it because you think you are going to make a lot of money off of it?.
2-3x my investment in less than 3 years ain't bad. I did somewhat better with Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) but gains like that are not that easy to find. High risk. High gain.
Re: My disclosure (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, I found it quite informative. You don't speak for anyone, AC. You aren't even speaking for yourself.
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I do.
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started showing them in stores yet, so Tesla has yet to tap the "drive before they buy" potential pool of customers.)
I don't know about the veracity of everything else, but this seems untrue. The Tesla store a mile away from my house has had a Model 3 in it's showroom for several weeks. Maybe it isn't a derivable sample?
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(Note: Tesla makes about 6,000 cars/month, so an increase of 7000 cars puts them even further behind on reservations. And as noted in the link below, they have not started showing them in stores yet, so Tesla has yet to tap the "drive before they buy" potential pool of customers.)
FYI: Tesla makes 7000 cars per week
Re:Shorts are running scared... (Score:5, Informative)
And that's how the cycle goes. Someone posts a hit piece, everyone sees it, the fact come out later, and almost nobody sees them.
The reality [cnbc.com] (which one might have guessed from the original article in that some of the suppliers contacted by WSJ had never heard of the request) turned out to be that:
1) There were fewer than 10 suppliers that were contacted by Tesla.
2) They were not concerning past contracts; they were concerning ongoing contracts. While it may not seem fair, automakers using their bully pulpit to renegotiate with suppliers for ongoing contracts is standard industry practice.
3) These were not concerning parts suppliers; these were suppliers contracted with Tesla on capex projects.
4) None of these things will affect the Q3 profits picture.
Re:Shorts are running scared... (Score:4, Funny)
Ed: the facts come out later. Maybe some day Slashdot will move at least into the '00s and add an edit feature. :P
Re:Shorts are running scared... (Score:5, Insightful)
Gotta disagree with that point; If you're going to comment, you gotta commit!
Not being able to delete or edit a post is a great incentive to think about what you're about to put up on the internet for all the world to see, and how it will reflect on you/your internet persona for years and years to come. :)
=Smidge=
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The facebook way is best of both worlds - you can see the edit history so if replies to "I love puppies (edited)" are all "wtf John Smith you sick bastard why do you kill puppies!" you can see very clearly what was originally there...
While at the same time not allowing a typo or misspelling to attract the "I can't refute your argument so I will discredit you via 5th grade grammar" folk.
Re:Shorts are running scared... (Score:4, Funny)
Well, the least /. could do would be to make posting a two step process where you get a chance to proofread your post and edit it before submitting. That should really help people!
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Ongoing contracts are contracts with prices negotiated in the past. XXXX wants a cheaper price now because they're XXXX. ...Please show how everyone says this is normal and expected behaviour, and not desperation.
I can tell you right now that renegotiating for cheaper prices is across multiple industries, not just automakers. I want to spend less money on something that I'm buying more volume of - it's pretty standard.
Heck I'm trying to do this with Microsoft, and you should have an idea of how that's probably going to go down. Still going to try though.
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1) That's not concerning the topic involved.
2) Anyone can file a complaint with the SEC. Filing a complaint and "the investigation has already begun" are two entirely separate things.
3) Martin Tripp is the sabateur who tried to frame his coworkers and threatened to shoot up the Gigafactory. Most recently he was caught in a lie about not knowing how to program (people dug up his old Stack Overflow, Scribd and Adafruit accounts - which he then tried to delete to cover up his tracks). Oh, and fun fact: the o
Skewed framing (Score:2)
So I just read that Tesla asked for refunds from dealers in order to cover their debts. I suppose this is a lie as well?
That's not a lie, but it's a skewed interpretation of what actually happened.
Without posting my own explanation (which also might be skewed), do some digging into what actually happened, find a copy of the letter actually sent, and decide for yourself whether it's of any importance.
Re: Shorts are running scared... (Score:5, Informative)
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Wont take responsibility for finding knowledge on the internet while on the internet.
How cute. The argument from ignorance. Sorry sweety, that's not how the burden of proof works.
You made the claim. Proof's on you
Pathetic.
Indeed. Trolling these days has really hit an all time low.
Oops... good catch. (Score:2)
Thanks - Good catch.
Re:Can you explain good news? (Score:5, Informative)
You forgot something: an argument to support your point.
Let me guess: it goes something like "look at how many cars they made in the past year vs. their valuation"?
Great, except that's not how you evaluate a company's value. A company's value is based on where they're going, relative to the risk in them getting there and the timeframes involved. In the case of Tesla, they're in the middle of a scaleup that no "competitors" are even close to matching. We're talking an order of magnitude difference in production rates. Other automakers have big longer term plans, but in the next couple years, Tesla stands alone. So at the very least one should be evaluating relative to that timeframe, accounting for the risk.
What Tesla is working towards in the next couple years isn't the hundred-thousand-ish cars per year of last year. It's the half million to 1-million ish, depending on how their schedule and capital flows go with Model Y timing and how much "Tesla Time Distortion Factor" you account for. Plus Semis. Plus a grid battery market growing at an order of magnitude per year. Plus a solar roofing product market, only just now going to its very first paying customers, that could become massive. They're simultaneously attacking multiple markets each in the hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars.
Now, if you're a Tesla bear, obviously you think they'll never get there. And that's fine, that's your view - you don't need to reiterate your talking points as to why you think they won't, we've heard them all a million times, just like you've heard our opposing ones. You surely likewise understand that bulls believe it's likely that they will get there. But regardless of whether one thinks they will or won't get there, they should have an appropriate sense of what the values of these markets are, in the case that Tesla does get there. They're massive. Which is why bulls feel that, even accounting for the risk, Tesla is well valued or undervalued.
It's the same situation with Amazon. Stupid Amazon bears looked at past revenues relative to spending. Smart Amazon bears looked at future revenue potential, but just didn't believe they'd get there. Amazon bulls looked at future revenue potential, and did believe they'd get there. Amazon got there, the bulls profited, and both the stupid and smart bears lost. But at least the smart bears had a plausible argument.
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The "scaleup" is entirely artificial, not market-driven. EVs are selling because California has mandated that a certain percentage of each automakers' sales are zero emissions vehicles [ucsusa.org]. The target is about 2.5% for 2018
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"So every automaker, whether they believe in EVs or not, is busy producing EVs to comply."
Except there is no automaker which does not believe in EVs. The last holdouts have been convinced by Tesla's success selling cars, and everyone with R&D money to spend (read: everyone but FCA) is building or at least now designing more-than-compliance EVs. And every automaker INCLUDING FCA is in the process of "electrifying" their FULL LINEUP, meaning at least mild hybridization. That is much more convenient than
Re: Sorry Rei....Complete nonsense. (Score:2)
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But even on the monetary side, let's say Rei has invested his entire life savings into Telsa, or even mortgaged his house to do it. It's still in his best interests to convince as many people as possible to buy rather than short. Tesla is very s
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spend more time focused on his investments
Get back to work, slacker.
Musk called his boss and his boss made him quit.
Get back to work, slacker.
Yes. I can see these after very different.
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*Cough* [slashdot.org]
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Alternatively, "Who is your daddy, and what does he do?".
Re:Clarifications: (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a significant difference between expressing one's opinion and trolling someone off of Twitter and endless ad hominem attacks on anyone who dares to disagree.
Re: Clarifications: (Score:2, Insightful)
ad hominem attacks on anyone who dares to disagree.
Like calling someone a pedo?
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Then he pointed out what we were all thinking, namely that the whole submarine thing was just a publicity stunt.
Elon was unhappy because he is unused to being subjected to straight talk.
Re: Clarifications: (Score:5, Informative)
1. Musk sends engineers to site and they speak to 'subject matter expert' about possibilities
2. Inflatable Wing assign 30% staff to task, drop production in half. Ship inflatable 'pod'
3. Continued interaction with on-site experts sees 'mini-sub' idea evolve, similar crunch for development and delivery
4. Someone not involved in this interaction who is _not_ a diver (as commonly reported, he's familiar with the caves and relatively local and did some early co-ordination) made some insulting comments.
5. Got insulting comments back.
Musk was in communication with divers and on-site engineers. This was not some 'out of the blue', uninformed decision to turn up with a mini-sub.
The uninformed opinion was the ex-pat cave explorer who wasn't involved in the loop and made some assumptions about Musk's involvement. He made some public comments disparaging Musk, Musk fired back. Neither behaved well, but you're holding Musk to a double standard if you condemn him and not the instigator, and you've got your 'facts' from the 'spin' that sold this story.
See https://mashable.com/2018/07/0... [mashable.com] and https://www.teslarati.com/elon... [teslarati.com] for eg. Try to look for links before his Twitter storm and you'll avoid all the 'journalists' quoting/sourcing each other.
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So you are saying Dick Stanton was not in the cave? You might want to Google who that is before making statements like that.
https://www.businessinsider.co... [businessinsider.com]
Kind of sad that the whole premise for you swearing at a fellow Slashdotter are some false facts you could have Googled easily. Also, even if it wasn't established fact (like it is) that he did Talk with Stant
Re: Clarifications: (Score:5, Insightful)
I think he got so angry about being called out because the stupid submarine idea was so obviously just a PR stunt.
Also, there is a certain don't-give-a-fuck type of Englishman that is just not impressed by money, and is quite happy to call a spade a spade.
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Mr Unsworth made the same assumptions you've made, but was under considerably more pressure and without the access to hindsight. His behaviour is understandable. Yours less so.
I've provided links that outline an alternate narrative from before the twitter comments of Musk made the whole thing a valuable news article. Downthread there's another.
I'm not defending Musk's behaviour - it's terrible, but it's not as terrible as people claim - but that doesn't sell as many stories.
Re: Clarifications: (Score:4, Informative)
https://www.quora.com/Whats-th... [quora.com]
Long story (somewhat) shorter, other people were asking Musk to help and he initially said that the Thai government had things under control. Eventually he relented and worked on some designs and a prototype in consultation with experts in Thailand, who thought it might be useful in the current situation if it took longer to get the kids out than expected with their original plan, and if not might be useful in future rescue situations.
Once he got started on the project he was certainly public about discussing it, whether that was meant as a PR stunt or being open with the people who asked him if he could help is open to debate, but in either case he certainly caught a lot of flak for it. Finally some guy who had experience exploring those caves and used that experience to help the rescuers, but is not a search and rescue professional himself, criticized the "submarine" pretty harshly, and Musk blew up in a disproportionate response.
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He was an expert.
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There's also a significant difference between trolling in a blog and a fund manager trying to manipulate the stock market.
If there's evidence of the latter, the guy's real name would be part of the news coverage of his arrest anyway.
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Perhaps you want to read again what an "ad hominem" is.
Hint: if I call you an idiot, it is not an "ad hominem" (fallacy - not attack)
Re: Clarifications: (Score:5, Insightful)
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He didn't do anything illegal as long as he wasn't buying the stocks he manipulated.
If he did buy and sell stocks he was spreading false information about then heaven help him, the SEC will introduce him to some interesting life choices.
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There's expressing your opinions and then there's just plain harassment and much of what he did clearly qualified as the latter. Considering how much of that he's been doing over the years any responsible employer would have also shown him his pink slip.
It is if they have it coming (Score:2)
See also, politicians who are virulent homophobes in public but are themselves gay in private.
Always . . . (Score:4, Insightful)
Always examine the hidden agenda.
Re:Always . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Mmmhmm.
There are plenty of legitimate complaints. Personally I really dislike all of the electronic crap that they've built in to the Model 3. Electrically-opening doors because that was the solution to avoid damaging the weatherstripping by lowering the window a centimeter prior to actuating the door mechanism? Stupid. Removing basically the entire traditional behind-steeringwheel dash cluster and removing basically all non-touchscreen driver controls? Really stupid. Designing and building a seemingly successful car whose use of petroleum products is at-most limited to lubricants and possibly cabin refrigeration gases? Not so stupid.
I really wish that Tesla had considered the Model 3 as an S with most of the unnecessary electronics removed, rather than going exactly the opposite in removing the traditional controls. I won't buy a car that requires me to take my eyes off of the road to operate a touchscreen in order to use basic features.
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I own 3 BMWs (oldest being a 2006 Z4) and they all lower the window when opening the doors. It's a common feature. I agree that making everything touchscreen is stupid though.
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Even with physical controls you have to look down to operate them though. I was just on a road trip and every time I wanted to adjust the AC I looked down to see what temp and fan settings I had to adjust them to new settings I wanted...
That said I would like to see a few physical controls as I don't like the number of clicks it takes to get to a few things. I think it would be cool if they had slots in a few places in the car where additional physical controls could be placed and programmed to do whateve
Re:Always . . . (Score:5, Informative)
The Model 3's approach is to put all of the most common functions on the steering wheel controls. The next most common functions - and most common things to see - are on the far left of the screen, right beside the wheel, so right next to your right hand, or right along the bottom rim. Note that it's a 16:9 15" screen (aka 33cm width) with 11 square buttons across. Meaning that each button is 3x3cm. These are not small controls by any stretch, and they're immediately adjacent to a rim, acting as a guideline.
(Note: to anyone who's never driven a car with a central speedometer: you're predominantly looking "down" either way. The only difference is that with a central speedometer - not even that Model 3's is all that central - you're also looking somewhat to the right. The advantage is that it's never blocked by the steering wheel or your hands, and that the dash can be lowered in front of the driver).
As for the specific case of air conditioning: it's a control larger than a credit card, right next to your right hand, so if you can't see that and hit in your peripheral vision, something's wrong with you.
As I've written elsewhere, there’s actually some very good reasons for the way the air vents are. First off, the big one: you have to be able to reach any controls in the car as a driver. So if your controls for your air vents are on the air vents, that means that they must be within reach of a comfortable driving position. Which means that the dash has to be so far forward that you can reach them. By having electronic controls for the vents, they can move the dash back and down, which improves ingress/egress and forward visibility.
Having electronically controlled vents means that they can make the outflow for the vent much larger. The larger the outflow, the quieter the airflow for a given flow volume, and the higher the peak flow volume you can achieve.
Electronically controlled vents means that vents can be autoadjusted to driver profiles. So whatever the current driver likes can be automatically set when said driver sits down. And there’s the potential for other features in the future — for example, someone pointed out to Musk (the idea seemed well received, so we may see it ~6 months from now) that when one turns on the air conditioning remotely, the vents should autoaim at the seats to cool them down.
Lastly, you have the fact that you can adjust multiple vents at the same time, with the vent-ganging functionality.
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I've been in a Model 3. and a model S (although I've not driven either). I knew there were some steering wheel controls but still feel like a few dedicated controls would be of help...
The vent profiles are OK but to me vent adjustments are per vent depending very much on what I am wearing, where the sun is coming into the car, and the temperature I want. So a profile is not as super helpful as being able to micro-manage vent output easily.
I like a lot of the ideas behind a software driven interior, but li
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. The only difference is that with a central speedometer - not even that Model 3's is all that central - you're also looking somewhat to the right.
The bigger win with central speedometers is that it actually improves your response time. By putting it that much further away from your face, it increases your focus distance. This makes switching back and forth between the speedometer and the road just a hair quicker, which is more significant than most people realize, especially at highway speeds.
That said, I too prefer physical controls. I can adjust the climate control system on my VW completely by touch, as all the controls are fully tactile, and have
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They really should move to heads up display for the critical info like speed, you could easily project it above line of sight in the top band of the windshield or at the bottom of the windshield and it would work even better than a central instrument cluster. But that's cause I don't like it to the right, I think that's a bad choice personally and that it needs to be visible without turning the head.
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I won't buy a car that requires me to take my eyes off of the road to operate a touchscreen in order to use basic features.
They have also enabled drivers to do just that, safely. Unfortunately many drivers mistook that help with a full auto-pilot and... well we all know what happens when you trust automation more then you should.
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Humanity strikes again.
SAE Level 2 in theory: A second set of eyes on the road, seeing the road in a different way as humans and with constant attention, is obviously an improvement over just one set of eyes on the road.
SAE Level 2 in practice, at least with some people: "Great, now I can use Twitter and Facebook during my commute!"
Got my Model 3 on 7/2. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
1) You have never test driven a Model 3
2) You are a shill for some competing industry/company
Yes, I am sure there is some kind of "rational" intrinsic valuation argument out there for shorting the stock, but, at the end of the day, Tesla makes cash from selling cars, not stock. . . and their latest car is amazing. They will sell as many as they can make at the current price point. If they manage to get the price down (which tends to happen at high volume), no army of Montana Skeptic shills will be able to save the oil industry from having to write-off huge portions of their fixed assets. . . Buckle-up and get ready for a crazy ride. . .
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It really is an amazing car. . . I feel like a requirement to short the stock is one of the following:
1) You have never test driven a Model 3
2) You are a shill for some competing industry/company
I like Tesla the car, but Tesla the company still presents some plausible reasons to doubt their financial future. The most compelling reason is that Tesla has yet to demonstrate that it can earn money consistently. It may eventually achieve financial stability, but it has yet to demonstrate stability. A second compelling reason is that the big car companies have yet to significantly compete in the market. Yes, there are technological impediments to catching up to Tesla products in the short term, but t
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I suggest you go calibrate your thinker - it is making illogical inferences.
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You see, not only do I have time to revolutionize industries like energy and transportation, but I also have time to fabricate elaborate clusters of posts on Slashdot. Here, check the date of this post almost a month ago (hint, "next Monday" = 7/2):https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12295668&cid=56867884 [slashdot.org]
I even have time to reply to Anons!
Shouldn't you be on Twitter or something
Obviously, based on your own logic, I have time to post anywhere and everywhere at once!
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Tesla doesn't make cash from selling cars
OMG. . . you mean I did not have to pay for my Tesla!?
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No, he's saying that Tesla doesn't usually get ~25% gross profit margins on their vehicles, and they're lying to the SEC.
Now cue the SG&A arguments that pretend that SG&A is A) linear with volume, B) requires no pre-ramp spend up, C) that we can ignore that SG&A requires hiring, and Tesla's hiring hasn't come close to matching Model 3 production scaleup rates, D) not mentioning that Tesla's layoffs were SG&A cuts, E) forgetting that the Supercharger network is transitioning from a SG&A l
Re:Got my Model 3 on 7/2. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
SG&A isn't the problem, it's CapEX, Captial expenditures for automotive are huge. GM and Toyota routinely spend a billion dollars ramping up for a new model, and that new model only changes at most about 30% of an existing design. Tesla is having to build from scratch, and each of their models is segmented so there is very little part sharing between them. Fortunately electric cars have very few parts so it's not that bad but the CapEx is the killer.
It's also why the regular car companies have been fighting electric tooth and nail, the capex for them to convert is going to about the same as it has been for Tesla, and it could even be more because they'll have to expend dollars to shutdown existing part production for the gas parts. The car industry is terrified of electric, not just the capex and not just the potential to wipe out margins as the electric can be far cheaper to produce, but the fact that a huge part of the cost for parts is the batteries that no car manufacturer produces. GM, Toyota and FCA make their own engines, but in an electric the electric motor is a nothing part, the bulk of the money is the battery that they won't be producing. So they will be sending the bulk of the margin out of house to a battery producer.
This scares the traditional manufacturers, they are being dragged kicking and screaming into electric and will fight it as long as they can. BMW and Mercedes and the other luxury brands laughed at Tesla right up until their sales dropped 30%. The model S has destroyed Mercedes sales, as a result all their top end models very soon will be electric because they have no choice, either they go electric or they go out of business as Tesla has been eating their lunch.
I think it runs deeper than that .... (Score:4, Informative)
The big "Ace in the hole" Tesla has over everyone else is their extensive Supercharging network. You can drive a Tesla on a road trip, even if you're going into parts of Mexico or Canada from the U.S., and the GPS automatically routes you to the Supercharging stations along the route, as needed, to keep you going.
With everyone else, you're relying on a hodge-podge network of mostly slower charging stations that make you sign up for accounts with each of them, in order to activate the charger and pay for it. I don't think the traditional auto-makers can really compete, even IF they build a superior EV to Tesla's offerings, unless they solve that problem -- building out their own fast charging networks that allow free charging (at least up to a certain amount per year).
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My proof of this:
1) He does not think Tesla makes cash from selling cars. Here are the journal entries for my purchase:
Dr: Cash 56K
Cr: Revenue 56K
Dr: COGS 39K (based on this [electrek.co]
Cr: Inventory 39K
Hey, look. The Cash account went up by $56K. . . they DO make cash when they sell a car. .
2) He makes Tesla sound like a college student that partied too hard and is about to get cut off by his
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Awesome Headline (Score:5, Funny)
The fantastically written headline actually says Elon Musk calls himself a Troll that is heavily invested in the Oil Industry
English, it's not just for Christmas!
Not surprising (Score:5, Interesting)
Doxxed? (Score:2)
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Actually gathering information however it's commonly released to shame people.
Please hold, parsing slashdot headline.. (Score:3)
"Elon Musk Calls Boss of Tesla Troll Who's Heavily Invested In Oil Industry"
"calls the boss"
"calls up boss"
"phones boss"
"Elon Musk Phones the Boss of Heavily Oil-Invested Tesla Troll"
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Troll? (Score:2, Informative)
History has shown that the conman of the business world have attempted to scapegoat short sellers for the destruction caused by their frauds. See Enron.
Re:Troll? (Score:4, Insightful)
He's a troll because he hid both his identity and the fundamental conflict of his own position. Maybe he has some decent criticism of Musk and Tesla (though from what I can tell, a big proportion was pure BS), but abusing anonymity and not disclosing his own business interests pretty much makes him a textbook troll. That, and the SEC may have some interest in his activities.
Re:Troll? (Score:4, Informative)
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I don't know.. being an oil guy commenting negatively on Tesla seems kind of like a nutritionist commenting negatively on McDonalds. If he holds TSLA stock, or is shorting it, or whatever... sure, making comments without disclosing the position is certainly ethically sketchy and may well be an SEC violation. If so, have at him. But if he doesn't have TSLA positions, I'm not sure there's a real issue.
Montana Skeptic always states he's short Tesla in his analyses.
Interesting wording there. (Score:5, Funny)
So, if I'm parsing that headline correctly:
Elon Musk called the boss of Tesla a "troll who's heavily invested in the oil industry".
Cool story.
Let me just look up who the boss of Tesla is... ...oh
Those who know don't talk, (Score:2)
What? (Score:2)
"Bear case"? "Bulls"? I feel like I'm sitting at a table, drinking fancy, pretentious brands of whiskey with a bunch of douche bag stock traders.
Not cool, Elon, not even a little bit (Score:3)
Almost as bad as the "pedo guy" comment, even if he did finally come to his senses and apologize.
I've engaged with several of the most opinionated SeekingAlpha contributors who paint doom & gloom for Tesla and Montana Skeptic was by far the most cautious and reasonable one even if he was derisive of the cars and the overall plan.
As an experienced commercial lawyer, I imagine he felt that Musk was rushing headlong too quickly and accumulating too much debt to ever be profitable with Chapter 11 restructuring.
He was always clear in his articles that shorting Tesla is a dangerous game for the faint of heart and the foolhardy and that his own shorts were only by long-dated puts, early 2020 if memory serves.
There were other shorts who claim to have made fortunes shorting Tesla like frequent SA comment poster NYC1965 who claims to have made over 1/2 a million shorting Tesla.
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most people are... musk is remarkably human.
Re: fuck musk (Score:5, Interesting)
This guy, Montana Skeptic was out in full force trying to down Tesla stock and bolster Oil stocks. He is a manager of a hedge fund. Isn't that manipulating the market? SEC?
Re: fuck musk (Score:4, Informative)
Don't laugh (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:fuck musk (Score:5, Informative)
Be aware that Montana Skeptic - famous for spinning conspiracy theories about Tesla and Musk that turn out not to be true - has given two conflicting [twitter.com] explanations [twitter.com] for why he deleted his Twitter account. In one of them, it had nothing to do with Musk, and in the other, it's all evil Elon's fault.
Re:fuck musk (Score:4, Insightful)
More likely, having not spoken to a sound attorney, he's blowing smoke. If the SEC does get involved, there may be a lot of smoke, the scent of pants on fire, and lots of subsequent litigation.
Nut cases have a habit of digging in deeper, when they should be looking for cover. Obsessed, they carry on even as noose gets tighter.
Re:fuck musk (Score:5, Interesting)
Yea his boss has reminded him of how many SEC violations he made over 3 years, and he left a papertrail on the internet with his Twitter account. Deleting it wont help because Twitter archives peoples accounts for a period of time afterwards for legal backtracking. Larry is about to get screwed and his company is about have the shiznit load of fines for violating insider trading rules. Larry might even cop some jail time for being an idiot for that long.
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While not explicitly insider trading (as I understand it), it seems dubious and borderline to, for example, short a stock/tell your company to short a stock while knowing that a smear piece of negative press is about to hit the internet in the next day (which you wrote).
While it may not be as surefire as shorting it in advance when you know the quarterly report is going to be worse than expected, once you gain a certain level of influence in the public eye, your posts ARE going to push the stock when they l
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That's spelled CEO, FYI. A lot of CEOs are.
What standards are you operating on? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's clear in this world of misinformation and "fake news" that proof does nothing. That the only way to get an anonymous agent to stop spreading lies is to lift the veil of anonymity.
If someone wishes to criticize, they can either do so carefully and anonymously with cold hard facts. Or they can express their unsupported opinions openly and publicly. There is no middle ground.
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I don't get privacy anymore because sheep are gullible? Hard no that.
I guess I'm trying to say that you don't get to fabricate lies and troll while retaining your anonymity. Or at least nobody is going to have sympathy when you're exposed.
Re: Not good (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Not good (Score:5, Insightful)
And Musk will pay for that stupid outburst. That's accountability. Hiding behind an anonymous account, not revealing the conflict that arises from your business interests when attacking another company, that is the opposite of accountability.
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Doxxing is not cool. I don't care if the guy is the world's biggest liar and jerk. Ignore him or prove him wrong, don't call his boss. Sheesh.
On the bright side, at least Musk didn't call this guy a pedophile.
Re: We are not all "Trolls" or "Shorts". (Score:3, Interesting)