Elon Musk Buys Twitter

[Edge-]

Edit: The oh btw, is why I bring up politics in this thread was his tweets about one party getting too radical and I guess has moved away from him. On this and many other issues the one US political party with the most egregious ideals.

Sure paints his "switch" to the Republican party in a different light, eh?

[Hammerfest]

1> We get to tell everyone else what to do.
2> No one gets to tell us what to do.

That's it. That's the entirety of conservativism summed up.

That sounds more like the American Left these days.

[Endus]

That sounds more like the American Left these days.

A statement only a ridiculous far-right extremist would ever make, because of how blatantly and egregiously false it is.

You are, as in nearly every post you make, lying intentionally.

You don't even have a case. You're just casually floating through the forum with all the determination of a jellyfish, dropping empty "NO U" bullshit like this into threads you have zero interest in. Your whole "schtick" is dropping these kinds of non-posts to derail discussions, because even you know you can't actually defend any of this nonsense.


Infracted.

[Shadowferal]

That sounds more like the American Left these days.

I'm sure Trump would like to have a word with you.

[Hammerfest]

That sounds more like the American Left these days.

A statement only a ridiculous far-right extremist would ever make, because of how blatantly and egregiously false it is.

Spoken like a Canadian.


Infracted.

[postman1782]

That sounds more like the American Left these days.

Only if you are fucking delusional. And we know you are.

- - - Updated - - -

Spoken like a Canadian.

He isn't wrong though.

[Rasulis]

Elon Musk says Tesla's car factories are 'gigantic money furnaces'

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said his electric-car factories are "losing billions of dollars" as global supply-chain disruptions and challenges in battery manufacturing constrain the company's ability to scale up production.

New factories in Berlin and Austin - where Tesla moved its headquarters in December - "are gigantic money furnaces right now," Musk told members of a club of Silicon Valley Tesla owners in Austin on May 30, according to a video of the interview published Wednesday.

"There should be like a giant roaring sound, which is the sound of money on fire," he added.

Both factories opened earlier this year to much fanfare. At the launch of the Gigafactory in Austin in April - where Tesla produces its Model Y and plans to produce the Cybertruck, a futuristic electric pickup truck whose design Musk said had just been finalized - Musk heralded "a new phase of Tesla's future."

But those factories are producing a "puny" number of vehicles due to shortages of batteries and global supply-chain bottlenecks, with crucial parts stuck in ports in China, Musk said. "It has required all of our attention just to keep the factories going" in the face of "severe" disruptions, he told the Tesla fans in Austin.

"This factory is losing insane money right now," Musk said from Texas's capital, shaking his head as he looked through glass windows at the factory floor. "We should be outputting a lot more cars from this factory, versus a very puny amount of cars."

Musk cited several challenges. He said the tools required to manufacture cars using 2170 battery cells were "stuck in port in China, with no one to actually move it," while the Tesla factory in Shanghai was subject to periodic shutdowns due to local covid-19 restrictions. And he said Tesla was finding it challenging to produce more structural battery packs and associated 4680 batteries.

[Ripster42]

Elon Musk says Tesla's car factories are 'gigantic money furnaces'

He made a move to not rely on leveraged tesla shares right? I feel like I remember something about that. Man I wish I knew exactly what insider trading was.

Edit: I want to be clear, I'm not saying this is insider trading, I'm legitimately ruing my ignorance.

[Endus]

Elon Musk says Tesla's car factories are 'gigantic money furnaces'

Elon Musk admits he's really fuckin' bad at running profitable businesses.

[Rasulis]

He made a move to not rely on leveraged tesla shares right? I feel like I remember something about that. Man I wish I knew exactly what insider trading was.

No idea. He has stated that Tesla will be laying off 10% of salaried workers and will depend more on hourly workers.

[Draco-Onis]

No idea. He has stated that Tesla will be laying off 10% of salaried workers and will depend more on hourly workers.

That's because he's been fighting unionization his threat is just a continuation of that.

[Fantomen]

Elon Musk admits he's really fuckin' bad at running profitable businesses.

Tell me which car company makes a profit on there electric cars? Sure GM and Ford make profit as a whole, but they "merge" the profit/loss of electric and ICE vehicle..... its like they do not want you to know...

[Draco-Onis]

Tell me which car company makes a profit on there electric cars? Sure GM and Ford make profit as a whole, but they "merge" the profit/loss of electric and ICE vehicle..... its like they do not want you to know...

That is false the reason new electric car companies burn money is because they have to build up the infrastructure and the scale for electric cars to be profitable. The established brands already have that infrastructure in place for decades they don't need to go through that cash burn phase. It's not that electric cars lose money it's that the infrastructure you need to scale up to become a car company from scrap cost way more than the money you can make in the short term.

[Magical Mudcrab]

Elon Musk admits he's really fuckin' bad at running profitable businesses.

Has this ever been in question? Tesla has never been profitable, with the overwhelming majority of its profits in the last 5 years being through the sale of regulatory credits.

Eleven states require automakers sell a certain percentage of zero-emissions vehicles by 2025. If they can't, the automakers have to buy regulatory credits from another automaker that meets those requirements -- such as Tesla, which exclusively sells electric cars.

It's a lucrative business for Tesla -- bringing in US$3.3 billion over the course of the last five years, nearly half of that in 2020 alone. The $1.6 billion in regulatory credits it received last year far outweighed Tesla's net income of $721 million -- meaning Tesla would have otherwise posted a net loss in 2020.

"These guys are losing money selling cars. They're making money selling credits. And the credits are going away," said Gordon Johnson of GLJ Research and one of the biggest bears on Tesla shares.

- Link

Musk is completely and utterly unable to run a lucrative business and Tesla is only making profits because of its sale of zero-emission credits. If Tesla cannot sell these credits anymore, they will be in the red. The only reason Tesla is worth anything is because the market is irrational, emotion-driven, and prone to overvaluation due to speculation. Musk is great for investors, bad for the companies he runs.

[Zan15]

Has this ever been in question? Tesla has never been profitable, with the overwhelming majority of its profits in the last 5 years being through the sale of regulatory credits.


- Link

Musk is completely and utterly unable to run a lucrative business and Tesla is only making profits because of its sale of zero-emission credits. If Tesla cannot sell these credits anymore, they will be in the red. The only reason Tesla is worth anything is because the market is irrational, emotion-driven, and prone to overvaluation due to speculation. Musk is great for investors, bad for the companies he runs.

i think in the past year and a half car's have become massively profitable but the problem is the rest of the company is a drain on those profits

Depends on what you consider profit on vehicles. the gross profit on them is around 30% in the latest filing.

[Magical Mudcrab]

i think in the past year and a half car's have become massively profitable but the problem is the rest of the company is a drain on those profits

Depends on what you consider profit on vehicles. the gross profit on them is around 30% in the latest filing.

If this is the case this just confirms what I, and I believe also @Endus, are saying. If massive monetary black holes exist and are killing Tesla's profits, these failings fall on the CEO. I would even go so far as to say that this would make their deficit in selling cars significantly worse, as it would mean that the business is potentially profitable, but mismanagement is causing the company to lose money.

In regards to gross profits, they're basically meaningless. The only thing that matters is net profits, as this is what you have after taxes, operating costs, and anything else that would take money away from the company. Bottom line: if Tesla isn't profitable, that's a reflection of Musk's failure.

[Draco-Onis]

i think in the past year and a half car's have become massively profitable but the problem is the rest of the company is a drain on those profits

Depends on what you consider profit on vehicles. the gross profit on them is around 30% in the latest filing.

It doesn't take a financial genius to figure out that buying solarcity to bail out his family was bad for the company.

[Zan15]

If this is the case this just confirms what I, and I believe also @Endus, are saying. If massive monetary black holes exist and are killing Tesla's profits, these failings fall on the CEO. I would even go so far as to say that this would make their deficit in selling cars significantly worse, as it would mean that the business is potentially profitable, but mismanagement is causing the company to lose money.

In regards to gross profits, they're basically meaningless. The only thing that matters is net profits, as this is what you have after taxes, operating costs, and anything else that would take money away from the company. Bottom line: if Tesla isn't profitable, that's a reflection of Musk's failure.

Well they had net profit of 3 billion and of that only 700 million was regulatory credits. We also know that the other parts of Tesla have negative gross profit margins so it's easy enough to figure out from the gross profits that they have a net profit on each car that is quite substantial vs the industry average.

Also, Gross is not worthless since it takes into account cost of goods sold and gives you a specific accurate take on profit per vehicle. It tells you what cost are directly associated to building the car vs other operations in the corporations.

From that you can then determine how much things like R&D and Selling, General and Administrative Expense are per vehicle.
Of course, then there are taxes, interest, one-time charges, etc etc

Gross is a better indication when comparing the profitability of tesla EV cars vs, the rest of the automotive industry.

Net ends up with way too many variables that have nothing to do with the profitability of building the actual vehicles. Just takes a single one time write down on assets (or something like this) to have your net income jumping from 3 billion to 15 billion and then what, you claim you made 15 billion on building cars?
Or have a huge purchase of regulatory credits, like has happened over a dozen times, to beef up net income with ZERO of it relating to actually building cars.

When most entities look at Net it is Net after adjusting out all these factors getting you much closer to the gross anyway.

[Magical Mudcrab]

Well they had net profit of 3 billion and of that only 700 million was regulatory credits. We also know that the other parts of Tesla have negative gross profit margins so it's easy enough to figure out from the gross profits that they have a net profit on each car that is quite substantial vs the industry average.

No, this is not correct. I will quote the article again.

Eleven states require automakers sell a certain percentage of zero-emissions vehicles by 2025. If they can't, the automakers have to buy regulatory credits from another automaker that meets those requirements -- such as Tesla, which exclusively sells electric cars.

It's a lucrative business for Tesla -- bringing in US$3.3 billion over the course of the last five years, nearly half of that in 2020 alone. The $1.6 billion in regulatory credits it received last year far outweighed Tesla's net income of $721 million -- meaning Tesla would have otherwise posted a net loss in 2020.

"These guys are losing money selling cars. They're making money selling credits. And the credits are going away," said Gordon Johnson of GLJ Research and one of the biggest bears on Tesla shares.

- Link

Tesla's net income in 2020 was $721mn, which included the $1.6bn in regulatory credits. This means that Tesla almost posted a loss of $1bn in 2020, which includes the time which you said "[cars] have become massively profitable".

Also, Gross is not worthless since it takes into account cost of goods sold and gives you a specific accurate take on profit per vehicle. It tells you what cost are directly associated to building the car vs other operations in the corporations.

From that you can then determine how much things like R&D and Selling, General and Administrative Expense are per vehicle.
Of course, then there are taxes, interest, one-time charges, etc etc

Gross is a better indication when comparing the profitability of tesla EV cars vs, the rest of the automotive industry.

Absolutely none of this is relevant in the question of whether Musk is a competent businessman. He can have as high of a gross income as he wants for Tesla, but the company only being profitable because of the sale of regulatory credits is a condemnation of his ability to run a profitable business.

Net ends up with way too many variables that have nothing to do with the profitability of building the actual vehicles. Just takes a single one time write down on assets (or something like this) to have your net income jumping from 3 billion to 15 billion and then what, you claim you made 15 billion on building cars?
Or have a huge purchase of regulatory credits, like has happened over a dozen times, to beef up net income with ZERO of it relating to actually building cars.

When most entities look at Net it is Net after adjusting out all these factors getting you much closer to the gross anyway.

It has everything to do with the profitability of your business. You can gross however many billions of dollars you want, but if you make negative net, you are losing money. You don't magic away the factors that lead to net income to somehow make it closer to gross, which would be accounting fraud if you tried to cook the books like that.

[Zan15]

No, this is not correct. I will quote the article again.


- Link

Tesla's net income in 2020 was $721mn, which included the $1.6bn in regulatory credits. This means that Tesla almost posted a loss of $1bn in 2020, which includes the time which you said "[cars] have become massively profitable".



Absolutely none of this is relevant in the question of whether Musk is a competent businessman. He can have as high of a gross income as he wants for Tesla, but the company only being profitable because of the sale of regulatory credits is a condemnation of his ability to run a profitable business.



It has everything to do with the profitability of your business. You can gross however many billions of dollars you want, but if you make negative net, you are losing money. You don't magic away the factors that lead to net income to somehow make it closer to gross, which would be accounting fraud if you tried to cook the books like that.

2021 net income was 5.5 billion.
Regulatory credits were 1.465 billion. 1.465 billion does not represent net income on regulatory credits, but gross revenue on regulatory credits.
Same thing in your example. Net income was 721m but the 1.6 billion in credits was revenue not net income associated to regulatory credits.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/d...a-20211231.htm

Automotive regulatory credits includes sales of regulatory credits to other automotive manufacturers. Our revenue from automotive regulatory credits is directly related to our new vehicle production, sales and pricing negotiated with our customers

You (and the articles) are assuming the regulatory credits are 100% profit and there is no cost associated to selling regulatory credits, which is not true.
In order to gain those credits, they have to produce cars.
Thus the credits are impacted by the same automotive cost of goods that car production is impacted by.

Assuming the same gross margin on regulatory credits as car production would put regulatory credits at around 400-500 million Net out of the 5.5 billion net income.

Even at 100% margin for RC, he'd still have a net of 4+ billion for 2021 without them included

It has everything to do with the profitability of your business. You can gross however many billions of dollars you want, but if you make negative net, you are losing money. You don't magic away the factors that lead to net income to somehow make it closer to gross, which would be accounting fraud if you tried to cook the books like that.

We were specifically talking about car production and profitability.
Even if you take the company as a whole, it's now making money hand over fist producing cars.