Tough competition with everyone getting in. Tesla lays off 'more than 10%' of its global workforce Tesla has announced layoffs of “more than 10%” of its global workforce in an internal company-wide email. We exclusively reported yesterday that Tesla was prepping a massive layoff. For the last few months, it has looked like Tesla might be preparing for a round of layoffs. Tesla told managers to identify critical team members, and paused some stock rewards while canceling some employees’ annual reviews. It also reduced production at Gigafactory Shanghai. Then, over the weekend, we heard rumors that these layoffs were about to happen, which came to us from multiple independent sources, as we reported on yesterday. The rumors indicated that layoffs could be as high as 20%, and in addition we heard that Tesla would shorten Cybertruck production shifts at Gigafactory Texas (despite CEO Elon Musk’s recent insistence that Cybertruck is currently production constrained).
Also Musk and his cronies are launching an all out campaign via proxy fight to get him a $50B+!!! Comp package. This in conjunction with trying to reincorporate in TX vs DE because a DE court allowed a successful shareholder suit to get the original $50B tossed as excessive and done in collusion with Musk. If I’m a shareholder (NOT!) I’m thinking to myself “maybe Elon is not the right man to lead this company”. Certainly not let’s give him $50B to stick around. And also “why is the compensation committee so committed to giving Elon such a stupendous amount of money” Makes me go hmm…..
Elon needs to do more cleaning. Verified pro-Nazi X accounts flourish under Elon Musk Elon Musk’s X is a thriving hub for Nazi support and propaganda, with paid subscribers sharing speeches by Adolf Hitler or content praising his genocidal regime. NBC News found that at least 150 paid “Premium” subscriber X accounts and thousands of unpaid accounts have posted or amplified pro-Nazi content on X in recent months, often in apparent violation of X’s rules. The paid accounts posting the content all consistently posted antisemitic or pro-Nazi material. Examples included praise of Nazi soldiers, sharing of Nazi symbols and denials of the Holocaust. The pro-Nazi content is not confined to the fringes of the platform. During one seven-day period in March, seven of the most widely shared pro-Nazi posts on X accrued 4.5 million views in total. One post with 1.9 million views promoted a false and long-debunked conspiracy theory that 6 million Jews did not die in the Holocaust. More than 5,300 verified and unverified accounts reshared that post, and other popular posts were reshared hundreds of times apiece. X’s policies ban glorifying violence — a broad prohibition that X has sometimes used to take down pro-Nazi content and accounts. The rules also ban “praising violent entities” and say the platform will apply labels to hate imagery like swastikas. But NBC News found that X does not appear to be enforcing those policies consistently.
Pretty interesting article, and fairly obvious to longtime users of Twitter. The fun thing is to observe some of the following: - Musk, darling of the right, amplifies Nazi hate speech on X - Trumppublicans label anyone anti-Netanyahu or anti killing civilians as antisemitic - Putin, and his Republican backers like MTG, label Ukraine as Nazi - Trump supports and accepts support from Nazis. (Such as the very fine people of Charlottesville. ) The pro-Putin, pro-crime, pro-Nazi modern Trumppublican gaslighting sure is confusing!
The spiral continues Every cybertruck recalled due to sticky gas pedal. Prices being cut to recover market lost to Musk and his X crusade to erode any profit Tesla may have been looking at Australia furious with X over refusing to censor posts about church stabbings But hey, give me that fat pay package I command or I will quiet quit. Australian Leaders Attack ‘Egotistical Billionaire’ Elon Musk As X Refuses To Takedown Church Stabbing Posts (msn.com) Speaking to reporters in Canberra on Monday, Albanese said: “I find it extraordinary that X chose not to comply and are trying to argue their case,” adding that the issue wasn’t about freedom of expression but rather dangerous misinformation that can be “weaponized.” Musk targeted the country’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant on X over the weekend, calling her the “Australian censorship commissar,” claiming her agency was demanding “*global* content bans,” and sharing a post accusing her of being an activist trying to “police the internet” and “censor debate.” In an interview on Monday, Australian Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek said Musk was an “egotistical billionaire” who thinks it’s more “important for him to show whatever he wants on X…than to respect the victims of the crimes.” The government has found backing from the leader of the country’s opposition coalition, Peter Dutton, who accused social media companies of acting “above the law” and offered support for legislation to crack down on misinformation.
Elon Musk wanted Tesla to slash its headcount by 20% because its quarterly vehicle deliveries fell by that much, Bloomberg source says (msn.com) The reduction, Musk reasoned, should match the reduction in vehicle deliveries between the fourth quarter of 2023 and the first quarter of 2024, per Bloomberg. Earlier this month, Tesla said it delivered 386,810 cars in the first quarter of 2024, a 20.1% drop from the previous quarter. The delivery drop was the company's lowest quarterly performance since 2022. Musk had announced a round of mass layoffs at Tesla last week. In his memo to staff, the billionaire said the company is slashing "more than 10%" of its head count.
Yep, Tesla stock down to $141 from the mid $300s when he announced his intent to take over Twitter. It turns out, harming your brand when you are hitting the take-off phase is not exactly a good strategy, especially when your brand harm also forces you to take personnel and your own time away from a potentially profitable company. I think, and I am going a bit out on a limb here, that perhaps he shouldn't have bought an unprofitable business that he doesn't understand for a massive premium with no idea how to make it profitable (in reality) and then spend resources and time trolling people who might have bought the profitable products while trying a bunch of stuff that would never work to make the unprofitable business profitable.
A company/CEO risk losing a percentage of their customers if they get political. Imo this isn’t the main reason for Tesla declining sales but it did have an impact. “In many ways, Musk was sounding a lot like Donald Trump, embracing billionaire populism, and less like the green hero he was once celebrated as. Those controversies, it seems, have put the electric-vehicle maker in an even tougher position this year as the overall market for EVs has slowed. It doesn’t help EV makers that U.S. politics has polarized the technology, which some Republicans have denigrated in their campaigns.” “Elon Musk Lost Democrats on Tesla When He Needed Them Most” https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/...7io2vuifl3iagco&reflink=article_copyURL_share
So if he didn't buy Twitter, nationwide demand for EVs wouldn't have gone into the crapper and competitors like China wouldn't have launched a cheaper alternative? Interesting theory.
EV demand isn't in the crapper. It is just that Tesla isn't the only game in town anymore. There are a lot of EV options out there and he is losing market share to them. He has also lost a lot of his green followers because he has proven himself to be a complete dick. Actions have consequences. I will thank him for helping get the EV market going, but other than that, I'm done with him.
Going out on a limb to say Tesla is probably not a huge concern for Musk, considering projects SpaceX and Neuralink are poised to disrupt in ways Tesla could have only ever dreamed of. At the end of the day, Tesla's market cap is still 5 times that of GM and Ford combined. Let that sink in.
Which is wild considering that GM and Ford both outproduced Tesla, Tesla's market share is dropping, and their revenues and profits last year were lower than the year before. The good news is that they have been profitable for four straight years.
Ultimately, the success of Tesla is tied to much more than Elon's X rants. People are going to pay regardless if Teslas provide a value add.
Nationwide demand for EVs isn't in the crapper. Demand for Teslas is. There is a difference. To wit: https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/07/business/tesla-ev-sales-slowdown-stock/index.html BTW, GM just announced today that they expect their EV business to be profitable by later this year and that they are still seeing strong retail demand for EVs in the US.
Musk/Tesla taking down long term bull Kathie Wood and the Arc fund. fund assets down 81% from their peak only 3 years ago Investors are ramping up their exits from Cathie Wood's ARK after an epic 72% decline in her flagship fund (msn.com) Investors in Cathie Wood's ARK ETFs are starting to increase the pace of outflows after a string of bad bets and a painful three-year decline. The family of ARK ETFs has seen a net outflow of $2.2 billion this year, which is about triple the $760 million in outflows seen in all of 2023. The sharp decline in assets under management coincides with a painful three-year period for Wood's disruptive innovation investment strategy. The flagship ARK Innovation ETF is down 72% from its February 2021 peak, and some of its top bets are still floundering. ARK has long counted Tesla among its top holdings, but the carmaker's more than 40% stock decline year-to-date has weighed heavily on the performance of the ARK Innovation ETF, which is down 16% year-to-date despite a positive return for the broader stock market. This dynamic — the sharp decline in ARK funds while the broader stock market hits record highs — was highlighted by Morningstar earlier this year. The investment firm highlighted that the ARK ETFs have destroyed $14 billion in wealth over the past decade as investors piled into the fund right near its peak.
I’m not sure what the hell you’re talking about latest incarnation of banned poster, but Wall Street typically doesn’t lie. There’s a reason Tesla is as big a stock as it is. Honestly would be a great time to pick up some Tesla stock right now. When it comes to EV’s, Tesla still sets the standard. Toyota is catching up but did we think Musk would never have ANY competition? If we did, then we must think he is a great mind.
You just said they had 5x the market cap of Ford and GM combined. They also have 10x the the market cap of Honda. You think these valuations are indicative of a “time to buy”??? If anything, you may have pointed to a reason it needs to fall much farther. It’s all rather unclear, but usually companies don’t get huge multiples if they are losing share and profitability. Those crazy multiples are with the expectation of massive growth, which Tesla had for awhile, now it doesn’t. Tesla is a bit of a cult stock (always has been), so not saying it’s going under $100, but its moves aren’t necessarily rational around anything based on actual fundamentals. Certainly its previous peak valuation was off the charts, you’d almost have had to assume every car on the road was going to be a Tesla to buy in at such ludicrous valuation. I think they are still the clear leader, but the more other companies take share it makes one wonder how sustainable any type of premium valuation is.
