January hasn’t exactly been kind to Elon/Tesla with multiple headlines Musk’s team of narrative spinners still able to drown out using Bannon’s flood the zone tactic.
Tesla put out Q4 results missing analyst’s projections for deliveries, had to slash prices, push people to accept deliveries early and found its market share for EV, Electric Vehicles, was reversing trends as competitors caught up.
At the beginning of the month this headline rang early and often.
Then this.
There may be lawsuits due to ripping off consumers pushing early delivery then reducing the value of that car by 20 percent days or weeks later.
The reality of these moves is that demand for Tesla has dropped significantly more so than the supply available. From an investment standpoint that is not a ‘buy’ signal. Then of course those pushes for early delivery and discounts caused this.
They also warned investors.
When a company juices its earnings like this through creative accounting methods, year-end discounts with falling demand, the next quarter is very likely to see a collapse in sales, profit and stock.
It’s marketing.
Tesla’s stock price which started the month under 120, will likely pop over 200 per share soon because of manufactured up front demand with probable shifting of ‘realized’ profits saved from the previous quarters and deferring expenses to the first quarter of 2023.
Most companies do this, so it isn’t just Tesla and Musk.
Disney for example recently dog-piled deferred costs and shifted some profits allowing it a ‘rare’ miss on analysts expectations during its third quarter and will soon report a sizable ‘pop’ in its own earning reports later this week.
The first quarter of 2023 report for Tesla scheduled in three months time is not going to be good by accounting design, with Elon likely cashing out larger chunks of stock to fuel Twitter and other operations prior to those announcements because Insider trading doesn’t get prosecuted sufficiently to deter such things.
And then there is this headline from today.
Tesla’s battery has a major safety flaw that when the battery is exposed to weathering and has corrosion, they light on fire. Repeatedly.
After California saw heavy flooding last month I expected the same trend that occurred in Florida with ‘unexplained’ car fires to start showing up in Northern California. This I believe is the first self-immolating car from that prediction.
If you are an unfortunate owner of a Tesla, you should be checking your battery for corrosion regularly.
According to a website that tracks Tesla’s on fire, there were 168 such combustions reported up until 2023, with fifty fatalities. Many of them were spontaneous, others ignited after collision which isn’t as bad as a parked car taking out the garage or burning up while driving on the freeway. The problem is the batteries that make the car work are clearly not safe.
At some point all Tesla should be recalled considering how dangerous this defect is as the battery fires put people’s life and property at grave risk, which considering the battery is why the cars work as they do, is a big F—- deal. That alone could push Tesla to bankruptcy and render its stock worthless.
Then we have Elon having to churn stock to keep his radicalization liabilities from sinking his other fortunes. This end of the year dump was likely for tax purposes given the timing.
How does Elon cope with his company’s horrendous problems of dropping demand and clear lack of a safe battery assembly that doesn’t ignite when corroded, and thereby print billions needed to keep his radicalization platform Twitter moving forward for 2024s election cycle?
Narrative.
Tesla’s media network supporting narrative includes this website TheStreet, part of Arena Group Holdings. Note that the featured story and one of five breaking news is Elon Musk.
Here is a section of the front page of theStreet with half of the news being obvious Elon-centric.
Elon and Thiel are still trying to topple fiat currencies so they not governments control money, tempting McDonalds to legitimize Doge. They shouldn’t. In fact world governments need to crack down on the ‘funny money’ that is sucking out upwards of a trillion in global capital that could be used wisely. It’s a scam. Always has been including bitcoin that we simply have to believe the numbers in circulation are what we are told, without anyone other than the creator knowing the truth.
Because Musk and his PayPal Mafia have the media apparatus, both social and mainstream, they control much of the flow of information able to put up smoke and mirrors. That may now be running out.