Yeah, the Tesla market capitalization is insane. It is driven in part by Musk fanboys and in part by fools who believe Musk's marketing. They might be a long term bet in the battery market, but the comparison to Porsche is probably apt, I don't see Tesla increasing their market share anytime soon and eventually the shine will wear off and the share price will plummet.

dupe deleted

Saboth wrote on Nov 29, 2022, 11:22:

Beamer wrote on Nov 29, 2022, 07:25:

Prez wrote on Nov 29, 2022, 02:59:
This site's sudden obsession with Elon Musk is starting to border on unhealthy.

There's never been anything like this in the tech industry. One man buying an entire company and running it largely on mercurial whims he puts out 144 characters at a time while utterly decimating the notion that he's a coherent visionary?

Yeah, I mean...it's big news. 400 million people use Twitter, and it's one of the leading social media companies. Imagine some rich dude buying up GM and immediately laying off half the staff while trolling everyone, then deciding cars don't need steering wheels anymore, then changing his mind and saying he's going to charge $10 a month for a steering wheel or other really really dumb business moves. This from supposedly one of the most prominent "businessmen" and one of the richest people on the planet. It's funny how the Musk fans are suddenly complaining that all of Musk's really bad moves are being reported as he makes them after they have been pushing him and promoting him for years as being this "futurist" that we should all let lead us and we should listen to him. "No, no! Stop looking at Musk! Look away!"

Perhaps Musk thinks of himself as akin to Steve Jobs - who returned to a struggling and downward-spiraling Apple and turned it on a new successful upward trajectory.

Of course, a lot of major differences. Apple sharply refocused on fewer, more profitable products while rolling out products (iPhone and iPad notably) that created entire new categories Apple was able to dominate at the beginning. They also developed the App store and other aspects of Apple's infrastructure system for users to encourage loyalty and a sense of cachet, heavily focused on marketing, and Steve Jobs made use of Tim Cook's superlative logistics talents to not only maximize profitability but also to lock in suppliers from being available to competitors.

Musk has famously been anti-marketing, yet is now running a platform whose profitability heavily requires luring advertisers. And Twitter (nor Musk's other businesses for that matter) lacks as much of a moat as Apple managed to build, and social media seems less likely to create any kind of new category akin to the iPhone rollout unless Meta succeeds in its VR/metaverse/whatever goals at great time and cost, which still gives me weird flashbacks to Google's own massive focus on trying to develop its own social media side for awhile.

It's worth noting that an article today notes that Tesla's share of the U.S. EV market has fallen from 79% to 65% in just 2 years and is forecasted to be less than 20% by 2025.

In China, Tesla has a 7% share compared with BYD which has a 28% share and is already just behind Tesla in global share of the market.

But of course, Tesla is worth more than GM, Ford, Toyota, Honda, Mercedes Benz, BMW, and Volkswagen combined - despite selling a fraction of the number of vehicles with a fraction of their combined profits and a fraction of the breadth of vehicles all of those competitors collectively produce. I'm sure there are compelling reasons for Tesla's market cap even now, something to do with "but wait! there's more!". But the implication seems to be that the company can do something along the lines of knock out almost all the other car manufacturers and be pretty much the sole supplier of autos and the sole firm to profit - or else create some kind of incredible new technology that replaces the entire automobile market and the company is again pretty much the sole supplier, etc. Color me pessimistic.

Apple has held its world market share fairly steady - usually around 15-20% - but maintains its profits from regular product upgrades, supply chain profit optimization, its brand value that allows a premium price, and its entire ecosystem that supports and sustains customer loyalty and steady profits. I don't see Tesla developing a similar profitability even if it were to achieve 15% of the worldwide auto market. They're around 2% right now. For comparison purposes, Porsche dominates a niche market with about 1% of total worldwide sales (about half Tesla's share) and makes half the profit. It's difficult to see how Tesla might increase its share while geometrically increasing profits in a worldwide business with many competitors (including notably the Chinese auto makers) for a product that is difficult to eke out profit percentages in the same way Apple can for for a far less expensive product, and a product that people buy far less frequently and in far fewer numbers than they buy phones, and where people like having a huge array of choices. And anyone figuring that self-driving vehicles will somehow be something Tesla can only do and no one else can emulate makes as much sense as the initial fixation on Apple's Siri before Google rolled out their competitor version and Amazon rolled out Alexa.

SpaceX is doing well right now. But there are competitors. And once upon a time Morton Thiokol was at the very top of the rocket-making heap. Now they're just a product part of Northrop Grumman.

All in all - I see more headwinds for Musk in all of his core businesses that would be a challenge for any single CEO, let alone one trying to juggle multiple large companies at once. Of course, Howard Hughes did much the same early in his career, careening from one interest to another with his own mercurial moods...

I noticed that I was quoted but wasn't able to determine if they had also read my follow-up explanation. Long story short, I couldn't give less of a shit about Musk; I'm old and grumpy, so take anything that I complain about with a grain ( or maybe a salt-shaker's worth) of salt. And also get off my lawn.

Saboth wrote on Nov 29, 2022, 11:22:


Yeah, I mean...it's big news. 400 million people use Twitter, and it's one of the leading social media companies. Imagine some rich dude buying up GM and immediately laying off half the staff while trolling everyone, then deciding cars don't need steering wheels anymore, then changing his mind and saying he's going to charge $10 a month for a steering wheel or other really really dumb business moves. This from supposedly one of the most prominent "businessmen" and one of the richest people on the planet. It's funny how the Musk fans are suddenly complaining that all of Musk's really bad moves are being reported as he makes them after they have been pushing him and promoting him for years as being this "futurist" that we should all let lead us and we should listen to him. "No, no! Stop looking at Musk! Look away!"

Quoted for Truth

Beamer wrote on Nov 29, 2022, 07:25:

Prez wrote on Nov 29, 2022, 02:59:
This site's sudden obsession with Elon Musk is starting to border on unhealthy.

There's never been anything like this in the tech industry. One man buying an entire company and running it largely on mercurial whims he puts out 144 characters at a time while utterly decimating the notion that he's a coherent visionary?

Yeah, I mean...it's big news. 400 million people use Twitter, and it's one of the leading social media companies. Imagine some rich dude buying up GM and immediately laying off half the staff while trolling everyone, then deciding cars don't need steering wheels anymore, then changing his mind and saying he's going to charge $10 a month for a steering wheel or other really really dumb business moves. This from supposedly one of the most prominent "businessmen" and one of the richest people on the planet. It's funny how the Musk fans are suddenly complaining that all of Musk's really bad moves are being reported as he makes them after they have been pushing him and promoting him for years as being this "futurist" that we should all let lead us and we should listen to him. "No, no! Stop looking at Musk! Look away!"

JeffD wrote on Nov 29, 2022, 02:22:
And I am confident in saying you have no idea what braves focus is.

Given what I linked, I am reasonably sure I do. But you go ahead and be confident. It's adorable.

JeffD wrote on Nov 29, 2022, 02:22:
I have no idea what this crypto popups you keep seeing... I dont get them.

At no point did I mention anything about "popups". I was pretty clear in what I stated was my issue with Brave's developers. Reading can be hard, but I am confident that you can do it. Keep at it, champ!

This comment was edited on Nov 29, 2022, 17:49.

Mr. Tact wrote on Nov 29, 2022, 07:53:
If such a thing comes into existence within the next 20 years or so please be sure to notify us here.

Will do!

Mr. Tact wrote on Nov 29, 2022, 07:53:
(Assuming it is Windows, or its equivalent, compatible )

Goddamnitsomuch!

To add insult to injury, musks staff cuts essentially killed the only thing Twitter was seemingly good at - instantly sharing information.
Twitter staff cuts enabled spam porn deluge that drowned out China protest news

Yep.

Mr. Tact wrote on Nov 29, 2022, 09:56:
Don't feel too bad about grumpy over it. Possibly the worst thing about all of it, is it gets Musk exactly what he wants, to be the center of nearly everyone's attention.

Exactly why it bothers me. I'm beyond tired of hearing about this attention-starved man-baby AND of the infantile morons who insist on giving him attention, politics be damned.

EDIT: Stephen isn't in the latter category - he is just posting what's in the news. Now get off my lawn.

This comment was edited on Nov 29, 2022, 10:12.

Don't feel too bad about grumpy over it. Possibly the worst thing about all of it, is it gets Musk exactly what he wants, to be the center of nearly everyone's attention.

Hardline Mike wrote on Nov 29, 2022, 09:37:

Prez wrote on Nov 29, 2022, 02:59:
This site's sudden obsession with Elon Musk is starting to border on unhealthy.

Bro it's a massive flaming trainwreck in tech overseen by an absolute parody of a human being who happens to be (or was) the richest man in the world. Of course it's going to get a lot of attention.

Yeah I know it's going to get a lot of attention. I was complaining specifically about Bluesnews coverage as I actively avoid every other news site. Bluesnews isn't blacklisted by it's nature of being a gaming website that isn't embarrassingly juvenile. But I admit that I was/am being grumpy.

Prez wrote on Nov 29, 2022, 02:59:
This site's sudden obsession with Elon Musk is starting to border on unhealthy.

Bro it's a massive flaming trainwreck in tech overseen by an absolute parody of a human being who happens to be (or was) the richest man in the world. Of course it's going to get a lot of attention.

Burrito of Peace wrote on Nov 28, 2022, 22:35:
Yes and also no. I wanted a browser whose sole focus was being a secure, modern browser.

If such a thing comes into existence within the next 20 years or so please be sure to notify us here. (Assuming it is Windows, or its equivalent, compatible )

Prez wrote on Nov 29, 2022, 02:59:
This site's sudden obsession with Elon Musk is starting to border on unhealthy.

There's never been anything like this in the tech industry. One man buying an entire company and running it largely on mercurial whims he puts out 144 characters at a time while utterly decimating the notion that he's a coherent visionary?

Prez wrote on Nov 29, 2022, 02:59:
This site's sudden obsession with Elon Musk is starting to border on unhealthy.

He is in the tech world so he gets to be in tech news

JeffD wrote on Nov 29, 2022, 02:22:
And I am confident in saying you have no idea what braves focus is. I have no idea what this crypto popups you keep seeing... I dont get them.

I mean, he literally just explained what his issue with it was... and also said nothing about "popups".
Read better.

This site's sudden obsession with Elon Musk is starting to border on unhealthy.

And I am confident in saying you have no idea what braves focus is. I have no idea what this crypto popups you keep seeing... I dont get them.

I am a huge youtube user so being chrome based is better, that why firefox doesnt work for me.

Burrito of Peace wrote on Nov 28, 2022, 22:35:

Mr. Tact wrote on Nov 28, 2022, 22:00:
So, it wasn't that you were seeing crypto stuff, it was a principle thing that you didn't want to use a browser involved in crypto?

Yes and also no. I wanted a browser whose sole focus was being a secure, modern browser. That is not Brave's focus. Their focus is now, seemingly, crypto first and your security second.

It's more like "I need a torque wrench", they started building a torque wrench, and then decided to focus on building a drill halfway through development.