Elon Musk and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good $779M Day

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$779 is a lot of money to lose in a day but, the bright side is that Elon Musk is rich enough to lose the best part of a billion dollars in a day and not go bankrupt. There's not many people on the planet that you can say that about. Still has to suck though. :(

He suffered one Thursday, when his fortune, on paper, shrank by $779 million, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. That was due to two factors: drops in the companies’ stock prices; and Wednesday’s regulatory filing showing he has put up an additional $489 million of his Tesla and SolarCity stock as collateral to secure personal borrowings. The pledged shares are stripped out of his total net worth calculation because they’re not immediately available to him. The borrowing is for personal liquidity; he doesn’t even accept the $37,584 minimum-wage salary Tesla is required to pay him.
 
Huh, I expected a lot of this to have to do with the rocket and satellite blowing up, but apparently it is mostly due to other things.

Must have had insurance :p
 
I think the rocket blowing up made for a bit of momentum that day traders have been snowballing bigger. But I've also read that today is a big options day and the market is being manipulated to put some of them in the money that wouldn't otherwise be.

As long as you believe the SCTY - TSLA thing will actually happen, there is currently a huge arbitrage between the two stocks. On the day of the acquisition, 100 shares of SCTY will be exchanged for 11 shares of TSLA. You can effectively get TSLA for around $170 a share right now, way less than its going rate, even considering TSLA is oversold thanks to the bad news in a completely separate company and the options market, none of which was caused by any news actually about TSLA. Its basically a huge buying opportunity, better than after Brexit. I bought SCTY 2 days ago, yesterday, and plan to again in the next 2 hours. Don't have any in TSLA. A bit of a gamble but I think Elon won't let the merger fail. SCTY is a bad investment IMO without the TSLA acquisition, but the arbitrage is kind of insane right now. It'll be TSLA stock before long.

Edit: Just got more SCTY at 18.5 . Didn't think it was going to hit that price but it did at the last minute. Now lets see what happens Tuesday once the options business is over.
 
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as much shit as people give Musk i still like the guy, good or bad he's usually pretty honest with the public when shit goes wrong instead of relegating it to some hired media spokesperson. as far as the spaceX thing goes.. 2 total failures and a partial failure in 28 customer launches with a company that has only been doing this for 10 years is pretty damn good track record so far.. i mean hell how many satellites have the Russians failed to put into space in the last 5 year and yet people just seem to ignore it.

i think tesla will get better.. it's going to take work convincing the public that it's the future. but it's slowly getting there, once it does tesla will take off because really there's no one else in the US is remotely competing with what tesla is trying to do.
 
Look at me shedding my nano-tears for him and i'm rubbing my thumb and index finger together as i play the worlds smallest violin.
 
How long is this clown going to be here, time for him to pack it up and go home. We don't need or want him.
 
572b41352179fe9922faaf0051a210044e80f980266bb20c.jpg


a 1% of a 1% of a 1% of a 1% problem.. the guy has more $ than probably 99.999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% of all the humans who ever lived
 
Methadras said:
Look at me shedding my nano-tears for him and i'm rubbing my thumb and index finger together as i play the worlds smallest violin.
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Look at him taking gamble for his vision with all of his billions on the line, and then look at us playing the world's smallest violin in front of the PC as we type away.

acairman said:
How long is this clown going to be here, time for him to pack it up and go home. We don't need or want him.
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Only because you define "we" as people who can't benefit from his endeavors, which has a membership that includes you, acairman.
 
My favorite thing about anytime a Musk project fails or screws up or explodes or whatever are the hordes of people that come out of the woodwork to shun the nonbelievers.

I have to wonder, does he pay these people to constantly defend his honor, or his cult of personality just that strong?
 
Insula Gilliganis said:
572b41352179fe9922faaf0051a210044e80f980266bb20c.jpg


a 1% of a 1% of a 1% of a 1% problem.. the guy has more $ than probably 99.999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% of all the humans who ever lived
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Actually the estimates show only 108 billion people have ever lived on Earth. Your estimate would make him the richest person on Earth which he clearly is not.
 
MisterClean said:
My favorite thing about anytime a Musk project fails or screws up or explodes or whatever are the hordes of people that come out of the woodwork to shun the nonbelievers.

I have to wonder, does he pay these people to constantly defend his honor, or his cult of personality just that strong?
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Indeed. It is amusing. He's the current Jim and Tammy Faye Baker of the tech world. A grade A huckster. He gets even smart people to invest their millions/billions with him. People follow the crowd and blindly cheer him on despite all evidence to the contrary. I wouldn't get so pissed off or laugh so much at Musk if he wasn't banking on government contracts for SpaceX or getting gov subsides/tax payer money for his electric AI driven cars.

The media hasn't talked much about a Tesla catching fire a couple weeks ago:

http://www.autonews.com/article/201...ith-french-authorities-investigating-car-fire
 
MisterClean said:
My favorite thing about anytime a Musk project fails or screws up or explodes or whatever are the hordes of people that come out of the woodwork to shun the nonbelievers.

I have to wonder, does he pay these people to constantly defend his honor, or his cult of personality just that strong?
Click to expand...
My favorite thing about anytime a Musk project fails or screws up, or explodes, or whatever, are the hordes of people that come out of the woodwork to cheer at the failures, because it gives them great joy to see someone more successful than them fail at something.

I don't worry about elon musk's honor. I don't know the man. In fact he could be a giant ahole as far as I'm concerned. But I do care about a clean future without oil burning cars driven by apes, and I do care about space exploration and the future of space travel. Since we're already consuming more than the planet can provide, the sooner we stand or more legs (eg. planets) the better. You don't need to get paid to defend that, you only need to understand, that when it comes to game changing things like space travel, other people's failures are a setback to the entirety of humanity, which in turn affects you too.
 
M76 said:
But I do care about a clean future without oil burning cars driven by apes,
Click to expand...

Sure. Get back to me when your standard li-ion car battery can hold as much potential energy as a gallon of gas and we didn't have to bring in the lithium from overseas. We'd have 40-50mpg cars if it wasn't for CA/CAFE-EPA/Fed gov fuel andpolllution standards that go beyond the possibility of current tech and make little sense. We can reduce emissions from 96% to 96.05% and lose a few mpg in gas usage, all while raising effiicency standards to ever higher levels. Or safety rules that increase car weight which means bigger engines, that use more gas. Doh. But hey, thats standard physics/engineering. Not sexy pie in the sky musky dreaminess.

Then there is the whole question of how to generate all that extra electricity for electric cars. All while cutting out coal, nat gas, oil and even hydro generation to get a "clean future". You want a clean future, look into thorium based reactors for electricity. Lots of potential there.
 
Elon Musk track record:
SolarCity - nearly bankrupt
Tesla - propped up by taxpayer/investor money
SpaceX - disaster waiting to happen
Hyperloop - hyperlol

At least Musk blew up Zuckerberg's $200M satellite. That warms my heart. :)

EODetroit said:
I think the rocket blowing up made for a bit of momentum that day traders have been snowballing bigger. But I've also read that today is a big options day and the market is being manipulated to put some of them in the money that wouldn't otherwise be.

As long as you believe the SCTY - TSLA thing will actually happen, there is currently a huge arbitrage between the two stocks. On the day of the acquisition, 100 shares of SCTY will be exchanged for 11 shares of TSLA. You can effectively get TSLA for around $170 a share right now, way less than its going rate, even considering TSLA is oversold thanks to the bad news in a completely separate company and the options market, none of which was caused by any news actually about TSLA. Its basically a huge buying opportunity, better than after Brexit. I bought SCTY 2 days ago, yesterday, and plan to again in the next 2 hours. Don't have any in TSLA. A bit of a gamble but I think Elon won't let the merger fail. SCTY is a bad investment IMO without the TSLA acquisition, but the arbitrage is kind of insane right now. It'll be TSLA stock before long.

Edit: Just got more SCTY at 18.5 . Didn't think it was going to hit that price but it did at the last minute. Now lets see what happens Tuesday once the options business is over.
Click to expand...
SCTY $135M in cash, 3,350M in debt. About all you need to know...
 
Although I am American I don't live in the US. I am thinking that I must be missing some sort of anti Musk narrative you are all privileged to be receiving. Are you trying to say that Telsa cars and SpaceX rockets are not ground breaking and therefore bad. Or is it that they were created with partial government money and therefore bad?

Without getting into personalities at all, the companies Tesla and Spacex have made some awesome shit.
 
Ranulfo said:
Sure. Get back to me when your standard li-ion car battery can hold as much potential energy as a gallon of gas and we didn't have to bring in the lithium from overseas. We'd have 40-50mpg cars if it wasn't for CA/CAFE-EPA/Fed gov fuel andpolllution standards that go beyond the possibility of current tech and make little sense. We can reduce emissions from 96% to 96.05% and lose a few mpg in gas usage, all while raising effiicency standards to ever higher levels. Or safety rules that increase car weight which means bigger engines, that use more gas. Doh. But hey, thats standard physics/engineering. Not sexy pie in the sky musky dreaminess.

Then there is the whole question of how to generate all that extra electricity for electric cars. All while cutting out coal, nat gas, oil and even hydro generation to get a "clean future". You want a clean future, look into thorium based reactors for electricity. Lots of potential there.
Click to expand...

* No one will get back to you when the energy density is similar because it won't happen. The low energy density of lithium-ion does not need to stand as a hard stop to the development of independent electric propulsion. Limited range seems to work for a lot of people, and "a lot of people" is a targetable market and feasible business.
* Changing legislation to support pollution over efficiency or vice versa is nothing more than a sidestep if anything at all. Both goals are lofty (in tandem), but only worth anything when both achieved simultaneously. Another solution is to eliminate a portion of the problem completely, which could account for this whole "storing of solar energy" business.
* Automotive giants continue to prove that reducing mass and modifying impulse during collision are the major factors in increase safety rating. e.g. Honeycomb internal structure, hollow extruded parts, and monostructure design all reduce the need for mass adding parts, fasteners, weld points, et cetera as well as increase rigidity and lengthen impulse during deformation (breaking threshold does not immediately render a part useless and continues to absorb energy over time). In other words, mass-adding safety features are old hat. Like 1970s hats. Mass reduction safety features are really coming into their own as of late.
* Russia and China were smart enough to invest heavily in lithium processing when the world went digital. USA continues to invest in foreign oil. Either way, USA is dependent on dirty refining industries. This point is moot.
* Thorium? Let me quote you: "...beyond the possibility of current tech and make little sense." How about we pull our heads out of the clouds and put an end to investing in pipe dreams like fuel cells and thorium and instead just focus on accessible solutions like dilithium crystals. :borg:

Musk doesn't need a fanboy defense. The guy's an evil genius who deserves props. He's been working on the biggest bait and switch the USA has seen for the past decade and the energy giants know it and are likely going to start investing heavily once they realize the meaning of profit. They have been surviving (word used loosely) on old money and government support for so long I figure they forgot what business is like.
 
"* No one will get back to you when the energy density is similar because it won't happen. The low energy density of lithium-ion does not need to stand as a hard stop to the development of independent electric propulsion. Limited range seems to work for a lot of people, and "a lot of people" is a targetable market and feasible business."

Such a market that they need government subsides to make it work. Reality, physics is the hard stop. Siting on my ass for 30 minutes to hopefully get a full charge loses out to a 5 min fuel stop at the pump.

"Both goals are lofty (in tandem), but only worth anything when both achieved simultaneously."

Thats the point. You cannot get there given current internal combustion tech. It is one or the other or some sort of balance. And it is the idiots in government setting that balance, with 50 mpg requirements with engines that are near emission free. The gov keeps creating unobtainable goals often to foster electric cars. Carbon credit schemes which are nothing but rent seeking taxes. Drop the standards to just 1990 or 2000 and you have 50+ mpg cars. Lighten up on the insane emission standards (higher than Europe for diesels) and you can have your safety tech with efficient engines that pollute less as they use less gas.

Thorium has potential to actually make it efficient to power many cars via electricity along with other side benefits. Pie in the sky it may be. The Fed gov dropped it despite innovating it in the 70s because it didn't produce fissable material for nukes.

"They have been surviving (word used loosely) on old money and government support for so long I figure they forgot what business is like."

Sure, with a government promoted monopoly on electrical generation among that support. Yet, Musk is doing the same thing. I'll give him props when he does it without taking money out of my pocket via taxes with gov goons' guns at my head.
 
Ok I get it, let's not care about our future, and our children's future, because it inconveniences you if you have to wait 30 minutes for a fillup instead of 5 minutes.
 
M76 said:
Ok I get it, let's not care about our future, and our children's future, because it inconveniences you if you have to wait 30 minutes for a fillup instead of 5 minutes.
Click to expand...

This is America. 5 minutes will get you fired and homeless in this country.
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
I mean hell how many satellites have the Russians failed to put into space in the last 5 year and yet people just seem to ignore it.
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Russia has 99 problems, but rocket engines ain't one of them.

Don't forget that the American Space Shuttle program was scrapped 5 years ago. Every single person that's gone to the ISS since then has put their life in the hands of Russian rocketry. And they have all been fine. Russia knows how to make things go to space....coming back with less flames and combustion has been, historically, an issue.
 
If he didn't sell the stock, its not a loss

Putting up collateral is not a loss
 
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