Elon Musk...human? - Political

[Spekulatius]

 

[TwoCitiesCapital]

55 minutes ago, Viking said:

I don’t think most American’s understand the damage that Trump and his crew are doing to the American brand outside of the US. And Trump is just getting started. It will be punch after punch after punch… People in the rest of the world will respond - they will learn to despise America/Americans as they never have before.
 

Needless to say, that will not be good for US companies doing business in the rest of the world. Something like +30% of revenue from S&P500 companies come from outside of the US. That will likely be moving lower in the coming years.

 

I have a coworker who swears my general statement that "tariffs are bad for all parties involved" is first order thinking and obviously overlooks that potential that tariffs can go lower in response to higher tariffs. 

 

He says my model of "tariffs are bad" is far to simplistic ...while entirely ignoring the second order thinking of what it is to be an unreliable trade partner, and unreliable military partner, and unreliable ally. Especially is it relates to the issuer of the world reserve currency which depends entirely upon those things...

 

Maybe my approach is too generalized - but so far has proven true. And maybe what he views as second order thinking is just first order thinking when compared to other larger topics being the dominant military power and economy. 

 

 

52 minutes ago, Spekulatius said:

 

 

The same man who didn't know people used to the term 'groceries' doesn't know how much cars cost? Yup. That tracks. The 'billionaire' savior of the common man!

Edited 9 hours ago by TwoCitiesCapital

[lnofeisone]

1 hour ago, Milu said:

As I’ve said previously I would encourage people to use a bit of sense when predicting the end for Tesla. In 2024 the company sold about 1.8m vehicles. They are currently transitioning the model y which is their largest selling vehicle and the worlds largest selling vehicle from its previous version to an updated model. This is being carried out from January to April/may and is occurring across multiple geographies, china in Jan/feb, US and Europe at the moment. It’s possible that some (but not all) of this drop in sales is down to this similar to if Apple was releasing a new version of the MacBook it’s likely they would experience a slowdown in sales of the existing model as people await the chance to buy the new iteration. So for the people predicting 50% drop in sales is your assessment that for calendar year 2025 Tesla total sales will go from 1.8m(2024 numbers) to around 900k, or if not what are you forecasting?

Your argument is likely correct for Model Y but fails to account for Model 3 also getting destroyed on sales. 

 

I don't think this is the end of Tesla. Tesla sales will stay impaired until Musk departs the company (even if he retains significant ownership) or until they offer substantial discounts.

 

Some people overlook that failure to sell cars really hammers Tesla. Each unsold car hits their bottom line twice. Once for car profit and then with the inability to produce and sell a credit. Europe also extended their emission goals to 3 years instead of 1, another small cut for Tesla. Tesla's numbers in the next few quarters will be mighty ugly. 

 

 

[Charlie]

Ray Dalio on the Trade War

 

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ray-dalio-cites-1930s-germany-031234228.html

 

 

Cheers!

[Sweet]

5 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

 

Sales at Tesla must be fairly poor for this to be happening.  I’m not sure it will have the intended effect.

 

The best thing for Tesla might be for Musk and Trump to have a very public falling out lol.

[Milu]

6 hours ago, lnofeisone said:

Your argument is likely correct for Model Y but fails to account for Model 3 also getting destroyed on sales. 

 

I don't think this is the end of Tesla. Tesla sales will stay impaired until Musk departs the company (even if he retains significant ownership) or until they offer substantial discounts.

 

Some people overlook that failure to sell cars really hammers Tesla. Each unsold car hits their bottom line twice. Once for car profit and then with the inability to produce and sell a credit. Europe also extended their emission goals to 3 years instead of 1, another small cut for Tesla. Tesla's numbers in the next few quarters will be mighty ugly. 

 

 

Ya that’s a fair point, I’m not sure what the breakdown is of model 3 sales vs model y is so can’t quite confirm how much they are falling off the cliff. My personal feeling is that all this negativity will result in perhaps a 10% drop in sales this year so going from 1.8m to something over 1.6m vehicles sold. I’d start to worry about some serious brand impairment if it comes in below that. I think q1 could be quite weak though based upon on the negativity and the model y changeover but feel that there could be a better set of results in 2nd half of year. 

Edited 2 hours ago by Milu