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Comment by tyre | Hacker News Reader

Tesla's stock has never been a car manufacturer stock. That's why it has so much short-selling against it. If you value it as a car manufacturer and compare it's (underlying business numbers):(stock price) to anything else, it's insane.

"at any company that made sense" is true, to a point. But the point of tesla has been, for a not-insignificant number of people, not meant to make sense. It's faith based. It's cult based.

Elon Musk has strong parallels to Trump's appeal. It might not make sense. That's not the point.

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I don’t view it as faith at all. I view Tesla as a software and technology company that incidentally makes cars. At least, this perspective can start to explain their valuation and the hype. I think Tesla is doing things no else is (was) doing and they have a massive first mover advantage and mind share. The other manufacturers are struggling to keep up, despite the persistent quality issues with Tesla. Tesla is giving people a product they want as early as possible. It comes with some warts, but Tesla figured out early on what people will accept and what people won’t in terms of quality.

Despite seeming like polar opposites they have a lot of similarities. A great knack for “triggering” their detractors, and a hyperdefensiveness in the face of criticism.

i think it is called "cult of personality", "great man theory" or "hero worship"

and it is probably related to medieval kings and queens, religious prophets and why some monkeys are more equal than others.

The challenge for Tesla and Elon is that I don't see the exit strategy? If Elon sells off his Tesla shares in any sizable quantity, it seems the stock would drop massively. If Elon steps down his involvement or passed away, same thing. So it seems it needs to keep on the show until Tesla can actually sustain its value somehow through normal business operations.

Knowing Elon he probably already planned on a way to exit the stock in a way that lets him reenter at the correct market valuation.

Execs in any public company routinely sell shares at a pre-determined rate every quarter. Execs besides Elon have been selling as part of the plan, and company employees are free to sell as well.

According to SEC filings, Elon himself hasn't sold any recently, but he owns 20% of Tesla, worth about $10B today. Even if Tesla drops 10x, he would have $100M worth of shares. Not to mention all his other assets, shares in SpaceX etc. He has more money than he will ever need.

> but he owns 20% of Tesla, worth about $10B today.

Tesla's market cap is $764.255B. 20% of that is $152.851B.

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TSLA/

Thanks, that number did seem a little off to me :)

> He has more money than he will ever need

Sure, he also probably takes a salary for his role at the companies as well. Still, there's a reason he continues to work I'd assume? It might be he truly wants to get electric car on the road, or it could be he wants more money. In both cases you could ask: "Can Tesla survive his inevitable exit?"

So ignoring Elon's motivations here, as maybe he just has fun running Tesla, who knows, still the question is relevant to other investors into the Tesla stock, and for Tesla's employees.

Fake it till you make it.

>Elon Musk has strong parallels to Trump's appeal.

Isn't that the strangest thing? If you watch videos of Elon he is no where near as charismatic as trump.

I think it mostly stems from his success with SpaceX and earning accolades for being, "The Guy who does Impossible things". His having a car manufacturing company with an impossible share price just make sense.

I think the similarity is less their personalities, and more in their use social media for shock value and attention, and the quasi-religious devotion of many of their supporters.

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