This clearly is one of the weirdest threads of all time. Lot of good commentary. Thanks Elon, you are looking like the next Howard Hughes. A misunderstood, weird dude.
Tesla probably had its best month since May 2013. Production seems to be on target beating market projections, and the stock price moved upward, after months of decline. Yet, I wonder about the long term since Porsche, Mercedes, and domestic competition clearly are catching-up from both an e-car perspective and charging infrastructure perspective, and their customers don't have to face the "unique customer experience" that Tesla provides. But yes, I realize Musk's Tesla shares are worth over $100 billion. Maybe Tesla still is a good investment, but you have to pause now, where a couple years ago, Tesla was a money manger's dream.
Space X apparently is doing well, making money quietly launching satellites into space for commercial businesses, but you wonder with the huge capital investment, is that sustainable? Yes, I realize that Musk's stock value in Space x is probably over $ 15 billion currently).
Then there is Musk's toy Twitter. It never was really profitable. Musk says it's losing $4 million a day. It has Billions in debt even before Musk arrived. It was the picture boy for incompetent management even before Musk arrived, and it had bureaucratic culture that made Berkeley look efficient. And Musk then comes in and runs it like a bad start-up, with massive firings, and modifications to a product that had a lot of users because people actually liked the product, and massive cost cutting to slow the burn rate, but signals bad news to the investment community and everyone else, such at not paying rent. One of the ironies of the Musk takeover is that mismanaged Twitter had great tech and a captive, influential user base was probably a pretty good candidate for a competent leveraged buyout operation that new how to cut costs and change corporate culture over time. But it has instead become a weird psychodrama dominated by Musk picking public fights that turn off advertisers and customers. His analytics probably were right, but Musk seems off (he actually does have Asperger's), as Twitter limps along burning money and slowly bleeding users. How much money is Mosk willing to blow on this toy? What seems to be talked about in the media is a merger, possibly out of bankruptcy to give the massive debt a haircut, with the buyer being a competitor that will have the infrastructure that Musk blew apart. The new combined platform will have dominating power. This sounds like an anti-trust matter, but bankruptcy courts have remarkable autonomy. Musk probably realizes at some point he is in over his head. An interest in a combined platform could be attractive to and a good exit strategy for Musk. He then can concentrate on Tesla and Space X and other ventures which need help to maintain their positions as industry leaders.
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