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Comment by anthony_r | Hacker News Reader

Either the customer or the investor. All of the current Tesla capital comes from the investors.

They've just started breaking even now, and it can take a while to cover all the past costs. As of the latest 10-Q the accumulated deficit (sum over all past earnings) is -$3.6B. The total capital raised from investors is well over $15B.

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Tesla had an effective 0 free cash flow in 2018, 1.1B USD in 2019, and 2.8B USD FCF in 2020. In terms of net income they have been positive since Q2 2020; 15 months.

They have been more than "start(ing to) break even now". It would be more accurate to say they have been more than breaking even since some time between 2018 and Q1 2020 depending on your measure; capex, opex, financials (interest, depreciation, etc), unexpected charges, etc

Depreciation and thus CAPEX over time is definitely a real charge, and so is stock based compensation from the point of view of the shareholder (think of the largest in history stock grants to a single person, that is the legendary Elon's stock grants; to quote a famous show - "this guy fucks"). It's not easy to beat the accuracy of GAAP income unless you know the company / sector in great detail and can introduce custom modifications. Going "yolo adjusted-EBIDTA stonks" and simply removing charges to increase "income" is rather optimistic/stupid.

But yeah, it is starting to look okay if not good. I was (well technically still am, but the position is tiny now) one of the shorts in TSLA, but I am done with that, didn't quite work :)

Yes, at the end of the day, the customers will decide if they want to pay for it. If they decide they decide not to, the investors will pay.

Just like any other kind of investment ever done.

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