Tesla Is Dead (And Elon Musk Knows It)
https://medium.com/surviving-tomorrow/tesla-is-dead-and-elon-musk-probably-knows-it-2858c86589d0
Tesla Is Dead (And Elon Musk Knows It)
I will never forget the first time I drove a Tesla Model X. My producer rented one when we met up with a movie star to record narration for a film I was directing. “This better not be tacked onto the film budget,” I griped.
He grinned and tossed me the Tesla-shaped key. “It’s your birthday present.”
I dropped the body to its most ground-hugging setting, set the acceleration to Ludicrous Mode, and roared out of the airport. It was one of the most exhilarating rides of my entire life — almost as fun as the time I drove 150MPH with no plates and no insurance on a toll road as an idiot teenager.
Driving a Tesla X is a pure pleasure, but it doesn’t mean Tesla Inc. will survive.
In fact, forces are aligning that could easily wipe Tesla off the map. Here are seven reasons why Tesla probably won’t exist fifty years from now:
1. It doesn’t make money from selling cars
As professor Scott Galloway recently pointed out, if you subtract Tesla’s Bitcoin ponzi profits and emissions credits, Tesla actually loses money:
“Tesla posts an accounting profit, but in its most recent quarter, it was emissions credits (a regulatory program that rewards auto companies for making electric rather than gas vehicles) and — wait for it — $101 million in bitcoin trading profits that morphed earnings from a miss to a beat. What Tesla did not do last quarter was produce a single one of its two premium cars, the Model S or the Model X.”
Losing money doesn’t seem to worry speculators during peaks of irrational exuberance, but when the rubber meets the road and the stock bubble pops and corporate credit constricts, real investors will want no part in money-burning businesses.
And it won’t take a full market meltdown for Tesla to become a money-losing entity: If the global crypto ponzi bubble pops due to more countries banning or regulating it, or regulators do away with emissions credits, Tesla once again becomes a money-bleeding company.
2. Elon Musk is too distracted to remain CEO
One thing you’ve got to appreciate about Elon Musk is that he’s voraciously curious and wants to solve some of humanity’s biggest challenges.
But that’s not who you want as CEO of a publicly-traded company.
One of the reasons you don’t see most Fortune 500 CEOs on Joe Rogan and SNL and, you know, running five other companies, is because they’re heads-down focused on running one company. When he ran Disney, Bob Iger woke up at 4:15 AM every day. Apple’s Tim Cook gets up at 3:45 AM and reads 800 emails. Elon Musk also puts in absurd hours — I personally question if sleep deprivation is what rational shareholders are looking for in any CEO — but in Elon’s case, it’s spread across too many projects to be sustainable for decades to come.
3. Elon is already diversifying
Have you ever heard of Dan Schulman?
Me neither.
He’s a former AMEX guy, now the CEO of Paypal.
Elon is brilliant at getting out early and pivoting hard.
He did it with Zip2, and then Paypal, and now he’s putting out feelers to do it with Tesla:
SpaceX.
SolarCity.
Hyperloop.
The Boring Company.
Neuralink.
BTC and DOGE. (Side note: Elon knows he’s the king memer and could easily add $100 billion to his net worth by launching his own altcoin.)
It’s only a matter of time before one of these side hustles takes off and he steps down as Tesla’s CEO, if only because…
4. More regulation and oversight are on the way
Elon once again put Tesla in the crosshairs when he started manipulating the cryptocurrency markets.
Never forget how close he came to getting banned from leading a publicly-traded company by the SEC.
If he keeps up these sorts of shenanigans — and he needs to in order to keep the stock price pumped — it’s only a matter of time before government regulators and progressive politicians renew their efforts to rein him in.
Speaking of lawsuits: There are already rumblings that his SNL Asperger’s announcement should have been disclosed to investors — when the stock tanks, expect to see this admission somewhere in the shareholder lawsuit, whether it’s fair grounds or not.
5. The stock price is wildly overvalued
Cue the angry comments from hodlers. (But please note that I automatically delete comments if the poster doesn’t disclose their TSLA holdings.)
As a sound investment, $TSLA stock is one of the worst picks in the world. As a fun gamble/speculation, it’s one of the best. But, just like Bitcoin, small investors are going to lose hundreds of billions of dollars when the price bubble pops.
Because let’s face it: Tesla is a story stock.
Don’t believe me? Just look at who’s been buying shares:
Tesla stock is clearly being pumped by unsophisticated investors who haven’t done their due diligence regarding the company’s actual long-term worth.
The end result: When thousands of Tesla speculators lose their life savings, many will turn their backs on the company, if not become actively hostile.
What is $TSLA actually worth?
First, we need some context. The price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio is considered the benchmark number for comparing one company’s stock price to another. The ratio is based on the current stock price divided by the trailing 12-month earnings per share. If a stock price is $10/share, and the P/E ratio is 10, it means that company is earning $1 per share. If you buy a $10 share with a P/E of 20, it’ll roughly take you 20 years to break even.
- Warren Buffett likes to buy stocks with a P/E of around 12.
- The S&P 500’s long-term median P/E ratio is around 15.
- The S&P 500’s current P/E ratio is around 44 — nearly triple its century-long average — despite the pandemic and a looming joblessness crisis. (#Bubble)
- Apple’s P/E is typically <30.
- Amazon hovers around 60.
Tesla’s P/E ratio is currently over 600.
That’s $0.99 worth of earnings for every $625 invested. Would you buy a business with an ROI of 0.001584%? Would you acquire a company that will take 600+ years to break even?
Cue the irrational exuberancers: “But Tesla’s future potential is huge!”
No, it’s not, not compared to its current price. To fall in line with the S&P’s historical averages and provide a reasonable rate of real return, Tesla would need to 40X its earnings. To provide a 10% annual return, it would need to 63X its earnings. Well over $2 trillion in annual revenue… 4+X more revenue than the largest revenue-earning company on earth. Not gonna happen.
Objectively, Tesla is wildly overpriced even compared to the overall market bubble. It’s a double bubble — the overall market bubble + the Musk fanboy story stock bubble. Tesla may very well be 13Xs better than the average S&P company right now, but that just means Tesla’s price bubble is that much more inflated once you scrub out all the irrational exuberance.
Tesla’s market cap is currently over $600 billion. If it traded at the same P/E as Amazon — arguably one of the strongest companies on earth — Tesla’s market cap drops to $60 billion. If you compare Tesla to Apple, which is a fair comparison and a far more rational P/E, it means that in reality, Tesla is probably only worth a measly $20 billion.
6. Volkswagen+ will come roaring back
To put things in perspective, Tesla’s market cap is currently higher than Mercedes, BMW, GM, Ferrari, and Ford, plus all the major airlines… combined.
But does Tesla have more customers, wider distribution, better engineers, deeper pockets, and more political connections than the rest of the auto and airline industries?
Absolutely not.
All his major competitors have deeper capital pools, wider distribution networks, and far more customers. Musk has nowhere near the political power. And the innovation gap is closing rapidly. That’s why Elon is constantly seeking new capital and pulling out all the stops to keep pumping the stock, even going so far as to manipulate people’s psychology through stock splits.
Elon Musk has unquestionably (and rightly) created a Thucydides Trap in the automotive industry, but is Tesla really the Athens that can best Sparta?
The question is almost irrelevant because another company is about to out-Athens Tesla and stuff Elon in his own Thucydides trap:
7. Apple will drop an atomic bomb
When Apple releases an electric car — and you can bet your bottom dollar it will — we can safely assume it will rival Tesla for looks and coolness and will likely beat it on price, too.
Follow the money with me…
- When Apple makes a car play, it could easily pop Tesla’s 600 P/E bubble…
- If Tesla deflates to an Apple-level P/E of 30, Tesla is suddenly only worth $20 billion…
- Which makes it instantly ripe for acquisition by one of the majors, be it Apple, Amazon, BMW, Mercedes, or even an old-school company like GM. (Never forget: Ford once bought Jaguar and Fiat once owned Maserati.)
To be clear, Tesla is an amazing company at a $20 billion valuation, and if Elon can’t keep the $TLSA stock price inflated indefinitely, an acquisition is inevitable. Never mind the bite in Apple’s logo… someone could chomp Tesla whole.
In Conclusion
I adore Tesla. Like Russia and HBO, it punches way above its weight.
I also like Elon, minus his market manipulation. He’s an extremely important person in the carmaking space. I’ll say it loudly: Elon Musk is the best thing to happen to the auto industry since Henry Ford. As a maverick agitator, he awoke the slumbering giants who’d happily relied on fossil fuel combustion for more than a century. We’re better for having him.
But, in the same way that Paypal will continue to lose ground to companies like Wise and Stripe, expect Tesla to lose ground to Volkswagen and Apple and whatever innovators come next. If things play out the way I predict regarding an eventual acquisition, fifty years from now Tesla probably won’t even exist.
In the meantime, don’t buy into the stock hype and endanger your family’s future.
Just rent a Model X for a weekend and enjoy the ride.
No comments:
Post a Comment