Elon Musk. Twitter. Babylon Bee.

[Ken]

Elon seems busy today

[Josh]

We are in a gigantic bear market right now. It’s a bit goofy to focus on individual stocks so much.

[Ken]

We are in a gigantic bear market right now. It’s a bit goofy to focus on individual stocks so much.

OK, let's see what the Wall Street Journal says today...

Oh.

[Josh]

Yes. In a bear market, different stocks take turns being the current “worst performer”.

[Robert]

Yes. In a bear market, different stocks take turns being the current “worst performer”.

If some of the new battery technology comes on line in 2023, I can easily see a upswing since it will drop battery price by almost half and the battery life is much longer. NASA and Tesla have both revealed new battery tech this past week that may really be the turning point in electric cars. If so, Tesla is primed to take a major share of the market.

Starship should launch by 2023 and SpaceX will see a massive upswing in stock price too.

Not sure Twitter can become real profitable, but if it is the loss he needs to offset his taxes, I can see why he bought it. Not a tax lawyer, so not sure you can do that across businesses, but Mr Mush will have plenty of extra cash to play with in 2023 even if a hard recession hits. If I was an investing person, which I am not, I would be buying Tesla right now.

[Josh]

TSLA is also up 9% today. I’m not saying to run out and buy it but it is meaningless to read anything into short term volatility.

[mike]

Last 12 months:

Dow -9%
Nasdaq -33%
S&P 500 -19%

[Josh]

Last 12 months:

Dow -9%
Nasdaq -33%
S&P 500 -19%

That Nasdaq guy sure is doing a terrible job! Imagine if he ran Twitter.

[Ken]

Yes. In a bear market, different stocks take turns being the current “worst performer”.

If some of the new battery technology comes on line in 2023, I can easily see a upswing since it will drop battery price by almost half and the battery life is much longer. NASA and Tesla have both revealed new battery tech this past week that may really be the turning point in electric cars. If so, Tesla is primed to take a major share of the market.

Starship should launch by 2023 and SpaceX will see a massive upswing in stock price too.

Not sure Twitter can become real profitable, but if it is the loss he needs to offset his taxes, I can see why he bought it. Not a tax lawyer, so not sure you can do that across businesses, but Mr Mush will have plenty of extra cash to play with in 2023 even if a hard recession hits. If I was an investing person, which I am not, I would be buying Tesla right now.

SpaceX is privately held so it's shares don't get bought and sold. And no, you can't write off one company's losses on another company. To make that happen Twitter would have to merge with Tesla or something like that. And Musk can't write off Twitter losses on his own personal taxes either. Otherwise people would just acquire money-losing companies as personal tax write-offs (tax shelters) which I think used to be legal long ago but isn't any more.

The problem for Tesla (as I understand it) is that they don't have much in the way of patents on any EV technology that will give them market exclusivity. I read in the WSJ that there are something like 54 different EV models already on the market or soon to be released. And that people also show less brand loyalty in the EV space than they tend to in the regular car space. So while Tesla had an early market lead it could soon evaporate. Plus, most Tesla models are getting pretty long in the tooth.

The two areas where Tesla has patents and exclusivity is in their charging system which is still the best for long-distance travel. And in their self-driving feature which is turning out to be something of vaporware. For about 10 years now Tesla has been selling an expensive self-driving feature that they promise will soon be fully autonomous, but never is. Full EV is going to be legally problematic for a lot of reasons that haven't yet been worked out. Like, for example, speed limits.

So if you don't really care about Tesla's supercharger network and don't want to pay $15,000 extra on an already expensive car for a self-driving feature that isn't fully functional then Tesla doesn't have much to offer over other EV models. The new EVs that everyone seems to want now are the new Hyundai Ioniq 5, Ford Mustang, and Nisssan Ariya or the new Audis, Mercedes, and BMWs at the higher end.

Plus there are even newer models on the horizon like the Hyundai Ioniq 6 https://www.caranddriver.com/hyundai/ioniq-6 which is aimed straight at the Tesla Model 3.

[Bootstrap]

Last 12 months:

Dow -9%
Nasdaq -33%
S&P 500 -19%

TSLA -68%