[HN Gopher] Elon Musk texts Larry Page about investing in Tesla ...
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Elon Musk texts Larry Page about investing in Tesla (2018)
Author : ent101
Score : 47 points
Date : 2022-04-23 15:40 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| qiskit wrote:
| 8/9/18: Wanna invest in Tesla?
|
| Tesla was trading at a split adjusted $70 per share back then.
| It's trading over $1000 today. Little larry could have made a
| killing if he invested then. But then again, he is worth over
| $100 billion so I doubt he's losing any sleep over it.
| cloudwalking wrote:
| Fun little Google/SpaceX trivia. For a long time, Google was the
| biggest SpaceX investor. Elon used to sleep in Larry's Palo Alto
| guest room for years... may still do so when visiting Tesla's
| Palo Alto office.
|
| Larry has a Merlin engine in his office in building 1900
| (Googleplex).
| jackfoxy wrote:
| ...and since you brought up Merlin engines. Search YouTube for
| Jay Leno's Garage. He has one episode of firing up a Merlin on
| a test stand, and another of a Merlin powered custom automobile
| he bought and restored. He takes it out for a drive pointing
| out the engine is never running above idle.
| mrtnmcc wrote:
| Different Merlin Engine
| henvic wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYcKdK7hmEo
|
| I think he's talking about a different Merlin engine, though:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Merlin
| gist wrote:
| Must be more on this thread (and what led up to the 'Just called
| btw this is Elon'. So someone texts Larry Page and claims they
| are Elon Musk and they are believed to be that person? (By Larry
| Page I mean)
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| Its interesting. But the use of "texts" and omission of "in 2018"
| makes this title feel a little click-baity...
| [deleted]
| mupuff1234 wrote:
| David drummond was the chief legal officer, I wonder why him and
| not the CFO.
| klelatti wrote:
| He was also SVP of corporate development.
| [deleted]
| dredmorbius wrote:
| https://nitter.kavin.rocks/techemails/status/151786934577011...
| losvedir wrote:
| What does "nice block 5" mean?
| rsstack wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9_Block_5
| guiambros wrote:
| Price at the time of tweet: $71.57
|
| Price at closing yesterday: $1,005.05
|
| That would have been a 14x gain, in roughly 4 years. Not bad at
| all.
| Helitioo wrote:
| I don't think we should do that.
|
| It's not adding value as at that time it would have been a
| gamble and not a obvious thing.
|
| I also still don't understand Tesla share price. Sure they are
| more than a EV company but they still struggle with there Tesla
| roofs.
|
| So why would Tesla be more worth than all car companies
| combined? Tesla doesn't just create a new market. They still
| need to replace others.
| misiti3780 wrote:
| drive a tesla then drive a competitor's car (if you can find
| one), and then you will understand.
|
| tesla is the iphone of cars. minimalist, performant, fun to
| drive. not to mention the no other car company is building or
| has a supercharging network. GM and Ford are the blackberry
| of EVs
| carlhjerpe wrote:
| It's not an apples to apples comparison, mass producing
| cars is very hard (your man Elon has said this). So scaling
| out to the level where they outcompete other manufacturers
| is going to take enough time that I believe their USP is
| long gone, therefore I think the stock is overpriced.
|
| Their battery tech isn't unique (and not theirs entirely
| either). Everything except the infotainment system is
| "simple" (in relative terms).
|
| I'm not saying they're not great, but that the stock is
| expensive
| ceeplusplus wrote:
| > Their battery tech isn't unique (and not theirs
| entirely either). Everything except the infotainment
| system is "simple" (in relative terms).
|
| The differentiating factor for Tesla has never been their
| battery tech or physical car quality. It's somewhat like
| Apple in that the combination of decent (but not the
| best) hardware and software brought together in a
| cohesive way creates something better than the individual
| parts. You're buying an "experience", which people often
| make fun of but ultimately I feel is more representative
| of what customers are looking for than looking at pure
| specs of the car. And a lot of the "experience" is
| powered by software or by custom silicon or other non-car
| things.
|
| Android still can't compete with Apple in terms of the
| polish and cohesiveness of the product despite Google and
| Samsung being juggernauts, and I think Tesla vs.
| Ford/GM/etc. is much the same. Just pick up a Galaxy S22
| and use it for a bit. The apps feel like a patchwork of
| different UX's, different ways of using the phone, and
| different modules that don't talk to each other.
| [deleted]
| jjeaff wrote:
| Ya, at some point, technical superiority has diminishing
| returns. Tesla may very well beat out all rivals for
| performance and miles per charge. But when your
| competitor can get 300 miles to a charge and 0 to 60 in 3
| seconds, there just isn't that much difference to your
| 350 miles per charge and 0 to 60 in 2 seconds. There are
| a lot of other factors to compete on.
| DamnYuppie wrote:
| Lol, this has been disproven time and time again across
| all markets including autos. People pay for brands and
| status. If your reasoning were true why would BMW's be so
| much more desirable than a Honda Civic? A product does
| not have to superior to command a higher price, marketing
| and branding can be terrifyingly powerful things.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| I sort of agree, but it's also true that BMWs drive
| better in a lot of people's opinions (including mine),
| and a lot of the knowledge needed to make all the
| thousands of mechanical interactions work well in an ICE
| is not necessary in an electric car, which has a much
| simpler time moving torque to wheels. So the amount of
| finesse that can be applied to an electric car may be
| less than what can be applied to an ICE car.
| Helitioo wrote:
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Tesla's p/e ratio for the last quarter annulized is 85. For a
| company growing revenue 80% annually and profits even faster.
| klelatti wrote:
| Apple's market cap (and profits) is an order of magnitude
| higher than that of the old phone market that it led the
| destruction of (Nokia etc).
|
| Not saying Tesla will do the same but transition to EVs will
| clearly fundamentally change auto market.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| The difference in design and potential between an EV and
| ICE is an order of magnitude less than between a smartphone
| and feature phone. The likelihood some traditional carmaker
| will beat Tesla at EVs eventually is fairly high.
| Meanwhile, Tesla can never hope for a serious lead on
| margins there.
|
| The hail Mary is self driving.
| klelatti wrote:
| > The likelihood some traditional carmaker will beat
| Tesla at EVs eventually is fairly high.
|
| This feels a lot like the statements people made about
| Apple at the start of the smartphone revolution. Plus
| they've had a long time already to beat Teslas at EVs -
| if they haven't by now why should they in future?
| entropicgravity wrote:
| According to Musk, for Tesla, batteries will be bigger than
| autos. Full Safe Driving will be bigger than autos (because
| of driverless taxis), and the robot will be bigger than
| autos. So if you buy into this then the stock is justified.
|
| I personally expect Tesla to continue to be a fabulous car
| company but these other segments seem unlikely for various
| reasons.
| jjeaff wrote:
| Exactly, Elon keeps coming up with these crazy new markets
| for Tesla because you at least need some semblance of
| possibility that it could grow forever. The recent robot
| portrayed with a person in a robot costume seems like a
| desperate last minute grasping at straws to keep stock
| prices climbing.
| McLaren_Ferrari wrote:
| > So if you buy into this then the stock is justified.
|
| Tesla was not incorporated yesterday, they are a 20 years
| old company, still they are in the making promises phase.
|
| In the same timeframe Amazon completely disrupted the way
| we buy things, Microsoft put a PC on every desk, Google
| became the way the world searches for information and
| Facebook revolutionized the way we communicate.
|
| I think it's time to admit to ourselves that this guy is
| just a wannabe influencer/politician.
|
| Among the 500 companies in the S&P500 if Tesla disappeared
| tomorrow it would be the one whose demise would be felt the
| least by the American consumer, that shouldn't come as a
| surprise because frankly speaking the target demographic of
| Tesla and its CEO aren't consumers who buy products to
| improve the quality of their own lives.
|
| It's a weird mix of financial speculators, cryptobros,
| people who feel the need to be part of something bigger
| than themselves, and virtue signalers.
|
| It's a pity that such experiment cannot be performed,
| Walmart sold 600B worth of products last year, Amazon 400B,
| Berkshire has 800B worth of insurance premiums AUM.
| Diappear those companies and then let's see if people are
| still so eager to pay attention to mr. Musk and his absurd
| claims and social media trolling/bullying.
| klelatti wrote:
| You may not like it but Tesla is a real company making an
| important product with substantial real revenues and
| growing at a remarkable rate.
|
| The valuation is questionable but saying he is just a
| wannabe politician / influencer is factually incorrect.
| McLaren_Ferrari wrote:
| > important product
|
| Sure in Bel Air is really important to own a Tesla, just
| like (if not more) than the car brands mentioned in my
| handle...
|
| > substantial real revenues
|
| How much of that is credits?
|
| > growing at a remarkable rate
|
| A company incorporated 20 years ago growing at a
| remarkable rate either implies incompetence in its
| administration up to now, or a dishonest scheme put in
| place to artificially simulate "a remarkable rate of
| growth" right now.
|
| Companies with similar access to talent and capital
| simply came to dominate their industry in the same
| timeframe (Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Salesforce,
| Intel, HP...)
|
| Globally speaking what % of cars sold are Teslas? 1 or 2
| % ? Tesla and Musk dominate the newscycle of the
| financial press, the tabloids and the blogsphere but out
| there, in the real world they are essentially
| nonexistent. It seems like the dictionary definition of
| an influencer to me.
| mandeepj wrote:
| > Price at closing yesterday: $1,005.05
|
| Did you include the stock split? I don't think so
| pmorici wrote:
| Yes, the op's numbers are using post split prices.
| klohto wrote:
| deleted, wrong math
| mlindner wrote:
| This is incorrect.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| bruceb wrote:
| Is anyone surprised sms are used instead of more secure
| messaging?
|
| One would think those at ultra level of wealth would be more
| cautious? Or are conversations started on SMS and later moved to
| another app?
| ent101 wrote:
| It's not clear if this was an SMS or sent via an app.
| daniel-thompson wrote:
| With the font and colors it kinda looks like AOL Instant
| Messenger
| naoqj wrote:
| There's this:
| https://mobile.twitter.com/Austen/status/1517711416349786112
| (first photo)
| eastbound wrote:
| It's fun to think that even the highest emir still just has a
| stock iPhone, no more, with the same movies as us, the same
| games as us, and iMessage as a means of communication.
|
| No golden keyboard and no CEO-specific encrypted message board,
| apparently.
| [deleted]
| ALittleLight wrote:
| Andy Warhol said something like "The President of the United
| States can't get a better Coke than the bum on the corner."
| 4oo4 wrote:
| So if I understand the timeline right Musk said "funding
| secured", then only a couple days later asks Larry Page for
| money?
| mlindner wrote:
| Well with the recent information that Elon Musk was apparently
| blackmailed to settle with the SEC, it's now unclear now if
| "funding secured" was actually false or not.
| ctvo wrote:
| > Well with the recent information that Elon Musk was
| apparently blackmailed to settle with the SEC ...
|
| I wouldn't call "hey, you broke the law and will receive the
| legal punishment" blackmailing. When a DA makes a plead deal
| with criminals, that's also blackmail in your world?
| zingplex wrote:
| The text was sent in 2018
| kaycebasques wrote:
| 4oo4 is referring to the original "funding secured" debacle
| in 2018: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna24714
| teekert wrote:
| Me on twitter these days... oh interesting... scrolling...
| fascinating... scrollling... it's about to hit... yes, almost...
| SLAP black screen, no scrolling back... internal curse. I need a
| twitter to nitter add-on.
| nynx wrote:
| What app is that? The zoom chat window?
| testmasterflex wrote:
| I think reproduced?
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