Elon Musk

look I'll give Elon this the guy does seem to be legitimately good at keeping the stock price propped up. like I remember $30k Model 3s and Full Self Driving being promised nearly a decade ago, before it was known what a huckster and lunatic Elon really was. but despite him breaking nearly every promise and instead delivering one of the dumbest, most impractical vehicles known to man, he's still got the stock price high, as though his cult's belief that Tesla is gonna suddenly drive all the legacy automakers out of business overnight is suddenly gonna manifest any day now

One reason I've heard of people not selling their stock is that the price is so inflated that the capital gains will be astronomical. They're cursed to hold it up forever, like Atlas.

It would also be interesting to know what percentage of Tesla stock is held by small individual investors. Even if they aren't all true believers in Musk, their psychology is a different beast than what drives institutional investors. If they rode the stock on its way up they'll be loathe to abandon their connection to that euphoria.

Matt Levine has mentioned some numbers/estimates, it's a meaningfully higher percentage than the S&P 500 average I think

the meme stock phenomenon, which in retrospect telsa mightve been the first, is interesting cause retail investors are driving the price and institutional investors are happy to come along for the ride, but what happens when institutional investors decide the rides over (its not good)

One reason I've heard of people not selling their stock is that the price is so inflated that the capital gains will be astronomical. They're cursed to hold it up forever, like Atlas.

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, February 5, 2024 2:00 PM (twenty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

its just taxes you still get to keep most of the money

Yeah, better to have a huge gain than a huge loss.

if they are $tsla hodlers its just 15% of the gain

I wonder if that is more of an issue if you are a casual investor that put your life savings into this one stock.

? you pay the taxes with the money you get from selling the stock

yeah, capital gains taxes don't really diminish once you retire, but if your total income is low when you sell stuff off you can fiddle around a bit

the only way tesla made sense to me was if they just fudged things long enough to piece the company out into licensing deals and selling off parts. other auto companies held shares because they saw some promise! the only thing that they've got so far is that the other automakers are now licensing the supercharger connector.
I don't think they're further ahead on the self-driving crap (which will never be "full" self-driving) than their competitors, it's just that no one else is dumb enough to let consumers enable it in a really visible way. other companies are making electric cars that accelerate quickly and are actually repairable

their niche is apparently "thing that looks cool that does stuff competitors don't" as far as differentiating themselves, and their offering is... cybertruck

these guys are too kind to the cyber truck, dont really have any taste, are overly interested in novelty, and are dorks, but pretty good review overall they went deeper on the real physicality of the thing than other stuff ive seen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNE-NyaYBcg

yeah, that's kind of the target market. it's not creating or adhering to an aesthetic, it's just novelty in the vein of "check this shit out"

kind of like watching a guy do a shot and then a backflip off of a picnic table. the chive-ass truck

keep cyber and truck on

telsa design wise altogether is kind of just a bad aesthetic poorly executed, but the cyber truck takes it to the next level, but maybe its better cause at least its silly, tho on the other hand it is awful

like what is this were gonna give the car sick ass doors, but only on the back seat

https://i.imgur.com/u5mdgfh.png

for some reason I hate that less than "we're gonna make the window have to roll down a little bit to exit the vehicle"

someone's going to tell me that they borrowed the window thing from a sports car design and I don't care

yeah thats truly inexcusable, it is excusable on some 1980s italian sports car cause thats not for commuting

lol the gull-wing doors made me (half)recall some prime alex cockburn snark from the 90s abt delorean: like repeatedly tried, always failed

also:
https://dinkytvspace.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/captain-scarlet-catalogue.png

crate containing radio active isotopes

One of my best friends recently bought a Tesla. No idea what model. It completely surprised me, I had no idea he swung that way. He's very excited because they came to the house to fix a problem. It will be interesting to see his evolution.

gull-wing doors look cool. now imagine parking your vehicle in any normal parking lot slot, with cars in both adjacent spaces, then swinging up your gull wing doors. so not gonna happen.

yeah, capital gains taxes don't really diminish once you retire, but if your total income is low when you sell stuff off you can fiddle around a bit

think generally if you're a retail TSLA shareholder sitting on massive gains, you're paying long term capital gains tax, which is favorable at a flat 15-20%... if you're making $100,000 from selling your stock you're giving up $15-20k but you're also getting $80k of cash... regardless of what tax bracket you're in

so i don't think it's a tax reason that's holding back retail shareholders from selling. they probably just have FOMO from fear of selling too soon. and now are probably on the wrong side of the S curve. hah hah

telsa is getting beat by other electric only carmakers, byd selling more cars

― lag∞n, Monday, February 5, 2024 12:47 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

guess byd was a gas car company and only stopped making them a couple years ago fyi

i was in china just recently and saw a lot of BYDs on the road (it stands for Build Your Dreams) they looked good the company is definitely building some dreams

One of my best friends recently bought a Tesla. No idea what model. It completely surprised me, I had no idea he swung that way. He's very excited because they came to the house to fix a problem. It will be interesting to see his evolution.

A friend of mine has a Tesla. Something was wrong with the charging - that is, it wasn't - which took several repair attempts and returns to the dealer. Eventually they discovered it was something wrong with the charging port, and replaced it. I asked my friend if Tesla paid for it all, and dealt with picking up and returning the car, and he said yes, but was still super pissed at all those wasted hours and days of failed repair attempts, not to mention a long stretch without a car.

Wall St. Journal really going hard on the "Musk is a druggie" beat. Which might annoy me in other cases but hey, have at it.

Multiple directors of Elon Musk’s companies—some who have used drugs with him—have deep personal and financial ties to the billionaire entrepreneur, and have profited enormously from the relationship https://t.co/4IIOq8aWzI https://t.co/4IIOq8aWzI

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) February 7, 2024

Was stuck behind a Tesla yesterday that had their turn signal on for about 20 city blocks. Guess they don't have the technology to solve that just yet.

next software update

musk revealed a fraud, tesla fans don't know where to turn

gull-wing doors look cool. now imagine parking your vehicle in any normal parking lot slot, with cars in both adjacent spaces, then swinging up your gull wing doors. so not gonna happen.

― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Monday, February 5, 2024 2:55 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol yeah no shit, I was just sandwiched in between two huge fucking trucks in a ramp the other day, our parking infrastructure was not designed for these vehicle sizes

those tesla doors tbf have hinges in them so they dont take up too much space while opening tbf, but putting them on the back seats and not the front is still very funny

Last week I actually had to sit in a lobby for about 20 minutes to wait for one of the absolutely massive pickup trucks parked on either side of me to leave before I could even think about getting in my car. Had a few moments of, "wait, what the fuck am I actually going to do if they don't leave?" because there was literally mere inches on either side (jackass #2 was kind enough to back in to his spot to make sure he could get out unimpeded though!).

I see a Model Y driving around every so often, it’s so ugly in person. There’s nothing particularly offensive about it (vs. the Cybertruck) but the entire package is hideous.

i modded a sunroof button onto my fob. take that dinotruckers!

https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/13/tesla_cybertruck_rust/

I saw one in the flesh last weekend

Amazing there's no clear coat, what a dumb omission... you'll have to be out there with Bar Keepers Friend and a green scrubby pad

look if there's one thing Cybertruck owners are probably good at, it's this: cleaning things on a regular basis

Maybe you need to treat it like a cast iron pan. Soak it in oil then hit it with a flamethrower to season the exterior.

Cybertruck Lodge Edition

I get the feeling that 'this corrosion' is just the first of many problems to come with this vehicle, but early adopters won't admit the issues

It's not the first! The wheel covers are known to fly off and they also seem to be causing unpredictable wear on the tires

I'm just going to cover my cybertruck with human skin

That feeling when your cybertruck is finally delivered.

https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-03/23/17/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-03/sub-buzz-29101-1490303746-8.jpg?downsize=700%3A%2A&output-quality=auto&output-format=auto

Later, when you realize what you've done.

https://www.thenation.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/trump-sad-getty-img.jpg

amazing things are happening with elons burner account

https://i.imgur.com/69VESKi.png

how are we all sleeping on this story: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/16/foremost-group-ceo-angela-chao-died-after-car-went-into-texas-pond.html

on this thread bcz the car was a tesla, it backed her into the pond, and the texas ranch belongs to her BiL mitch mcconnell

what the shit

She was one of my college classmates (I did not know her)

wow, from a cursory search there doesnt seem to be any reputable reporting saying it was a telsa at this point fwiw

also "Foremost Group" ok but whats the name of the group haha