"Why famed short-seller Carson Block won't bet against Tesla" (TSLA)

Same.*

From Business Insider, Oct 21, 2024:

• The famed short-seller Carson Block said he wouldn't bet against Elon Musk's Tesla.
• He argued that the EV maker's sheer size gave it a strong capital base that could weather turmoil.
• "Elon pulls rabbits out of the hat constantly," he said, adding, "I just won't bet against Elon."

Carson Block, known for his shrewd short bets against companies, says he won't bet against Tesla.

The famed Muddy Waters investor said he concluded in 2021 that shorting Tesla was a fool's errand. He said he realized the company's capital base was its safety net.

"What all of the bears missed" was that Elon Musk "understood that the scale he needed to have was capital base," Block told Bloomberg TV on Monday. "And so when he was able to yoke that stock price way up and have this enormous market cap — I mean, even if the company is bleeding billions of dollars and the stock is sinking, there's so much market cap that he can continue to raise money."

It's an about-face for Block, who said he had bet against Tesla in the past. He told Bloomberg that several years ago his firm held long-dated puts on Tesla designed to capitalize on a share-price drop that nearly materialized.

"It is a volatile stock, but, you know, it continues to get flows," Block said, adding: "Tesla's not going bankrupt for a very long time. And that's what the bears missed, because the bears were hung up on this 'Oh, it bleeds money, it's going to go bankrupt.'"....

....MUCH MORE

*Yesterday the stock was up $37.09 (+14.75%) to $288.53. Tesla came public at $17 (a split adjusted $1.13). For the first 10,000% of Tesla's up-move from the IPO it was almost a mantra. Here are some of the posts that come up with a quick search of the blog, https://climateerinvest.blogspot.com/search?q=don't+short+tesla: 

October 25, 2021 - (psst, don't short TSLA) "Tesla Rockets To Record Highs On 100,000 Vehicle Order From Hertz, $1600 Bull-Case Price Target From Morgan Stanley"

As I try to remember how to work a slide rule (dad, what's a slide rule?) to figure the price equivalent on the pre-split stock here is ZeroHedge.... 

...Let's see, take the $953 pre-market top-tick, move this thing to the left, squint to see the line and that's $4765 on the old stock. It came public at $17.

And for just about that entire time we've been saying "Don't short Tesla".

Not because of any deep insight into the technology, though we're better than the average analyst in an autodidactic sort of way, or because we know what's inside Elon Musk's head but rather, because we've been following the stock on the blog since before the IPO and realized, almost out of the gate, that this was a cult stock. And cult stocks can destroy short sellers.

Here's a repost from January 2020 (the FinViz chart is set to update the last twelve months, daily):

I Know We Have A General "Don't Short Tesla" Rule But Man.... (TSLA)
....the darn thing is approaching verticality.

 *April 1, 2013 
Why We Don't Short Tesla: The stock is up 16% On The Day (TSLA)

April 22, 2013 
Tesla Motors Trades At All-Time High (TSLA) 

The stock is at $49.75, up 4%, after trading as high as $50.19.
The thing to remember with all-time highs is there is no overhead supply, no shareholders thinking "As soon as I get to breakeven I'm getting out"....

August 2015
Short Selling and The Information Embedded In The Cost To Borrow Stock (TSLA)

August 2016
...For the longest time we had a Don't Short Tesla policy because it showed signs of being a cult stock and cult stocks can kill shorts. Plus it can be very hard to locate stock and very expensive to borrow when you do,

From an August 2015 post:

Morgan Stanley Gives a $465 Target For Tesla, Stock Jumps 5%...

We've publicly shorted Tesla twice on the blog, both times worked out because nothing like this happened during the holding period.
For the most part this April 2013 headline is operative "Why We Don't Short Tesla: The stock is up 16% On The Day (TSLA)". That was at $44.00, up $6.11.
Recently $255.30 up $12.15.
Morgan Stanley was one of the firms that sold the recent half-billion stock offering....

However, after the SolarCity deal and Elon's purchase of SCTY debt (on top of his SpaceX buying SCTY debt) I'm more open to betting against the company, at least tactically if not to zero.
Remember, your mileage may vary, close cover before striking etc.

June 2017
"Einhorn Compares GM to Apple and Explains Why He’s Short Tesla" (TSLA; GM)

...It is just so dangerous to put valuation (as compared to fraud) shorts on in a bull market.
We have had a general rule, "Don't short Tesla" virtually since the IPO, that we've violated on three occasions, fortunately profitable but it is tough to tell if it was worth the risk.

Finally, if you do short, don't be this guy (no, seriously, don't be this guy):

 

*That was posted to YouTube Aug 23, 2013.

(psst, don't short TSLA) "Tesla Rockets To Record Highs On 100,000 Vehicle Order From Hertz, $1600 Bull-Case Price Target From Morgan Stanley"

As I try to remember how to work a slide rule (dad, what's a slide rule?) to figure the price equivalent on the pre-split stock here is ZeroHedge:

Tesla shares are rocketing to all time highs in the pre-market session this morning on news of Hertz reportedly buying 100,000 of their vehicles, in addition to an upgrade from Morgan Stanley that came over the weekend. 

Shares were already bumping higher on the MS upgrade when the Hertz headlines hit the wire around 0730EST, sending shares to the $950 level.

[5-minute bars]

Even though Hertz is just about four months out of bankruptcy, it is implementing an "ambitious" plan to electrify its fleet, beginning with plans to buy 100,000 Teslas, Bloomberg reported Monday morning.

The order marks the "single-largest purchase ever for electric vehicles" and will equate to about $4.2 billion in revenue for Tesla, sources told Bloomberg. 

The order will be delivered over the next 14 months and Model 3 vehicles will be available to rent at most Hertz locations starting in November, the report says.

Hertz is also going to be building its own charging infrastructure, in addition to allowing customers to have access to Tesla's Supercharger network. 

Hertz is planning on electrifying "almost all" of its half a million cars and trucks worldwide. The order marks about 10% of Tesla's total production capacity for a year and may also prevent competitors from making similar purchases from the automaker. 

The plan is "ambitious" enough for people to have doubts right off the bat....

....MUCH MORE

Let's see, take the $953 pre-market top-tick, move this thing to the left, squint to see the line and that's $4765 on the old stock. It came public at $17.

And for just about that entire time we've been saying "Don't short Tesla".

Not because of any deep insight into the technology, though we're better than the average analyst in an autodidactic sort of way, or because we know what's inside Elon Musk's head but rather, because we've been following the stock on the blog since before the IPO and realized, almost out of the gate, that this was a cult stock. And cult stocks can destroy short sellers.

Here's a repost from January 2020 (the FinViz chart is set to update the last twelve months, daily): 

I Know We Have A General "Don't Short Tesla" Rule But Man.... (TSLA)

....the darn thing is approaching verticality.

The stock is up $39.86 (+8.34%) at $518.01.

FinViz

We have a few hundred posts on Tesla, going back to before the IPO including some thoughts* on shorting TSLA.
Some links after the jump.

From TechCrunch:

8:42 am PST • January 13, 2020

Tesla surges past $500 on back of analyst upgrade, China momentum

Today in regular trading, shares of American electric car manufacturer Tesla surged past the $500 mark.

Tesla, perhaps the most famous electric vehicle company in the world, has had a tumultuous last 12 months on the public markets. The company’s shares have traded as low as $176.99 in the past 52 weeks, and, as has high as $507.50 today.

The company is worth $507.28 per share at the moment, valuing Tesla at $91.38 billion according to Google Finance. As is often pointed out, Tesla is worth more than Ford and General Motors combined. In a slightly more exotic formulation, Tesla is worth just under 64 times as much as Aston Martin.

What’s going on?
Why is Telsa surging? We presume that it’s not the latest from Musk, that “Teslas will soon talk and make fart noises,” according to CNBC. (At least we hope not.)

Instead, an investor upgrade this morning could be the key reason for the company’s gains today. As IBD points out, the new target from Oppenheimer is over $600 per share.

That’s today’s runup explained. The morning’s rally, however, is tied to the company’s rising growing operations in China and global delivery figures....MUCH MORE

We've violated the 'Don't short Tesla' rule a half-dozen times and fortunately escaped with tactical profits but the thing is, in bull markets it is just so dangerous to make valuation shorts. Even shorting outright frauds can kill you if you don't have staying power and/or a friendly banker who won't pull your credit lines at the worst possible moment.

Some previous posts on this topic:

 *April 1, 2013 
Why We Don't Short Tesla: The stock is up 16% On The Day (TSLA)

April 22, 2013 
Tesla Motors Trades At All-Time High (TSLA) 

The stock is at $49.75, up 4%, after trading as high as $50.19.
The thing to remember with all-time highs is there is no overhead supply, no shareholders thinking "As soon as I get to breakeven I'm getting out"....

August 2015
Short Selling and The Information Embedded In The Cost To Borrow Stock (TSLA)

August 2016
...For the longest time we had a Don't Short Tesla policy because it showed signs of being a cult stock and cult stocks can kill shorts. Plus it can be very hard to locate stock and very expensive to borrow when you do,

From an August 2015 post:

Morgan Stanley Gives a $465 Target For Tesla, Stock Jumps 5%...

We've publicly shorted Tesla twice on the blog, both times worked out because nothing like this happened during the holding period.
For the most part this April 2013 headline is operative "Why We Don't Short Tesla: The stock is up 16% On The Day (TSLA)". That was at $44.00, up $6.11.
Recently $255.30 up $12.15.
Morgan Stanley was one of the firms that sold the recent half-billion stock offering....

However, after the SolarCity deal and Elon's purchase of SCTY debt (on top of his SpaceX buying SCTY debt) I'm more open to betting against the company, at least tactically if not to zero.
Remember, your mileage may vary, close cover before striking etc.

June 2017
"Einhorn Compares GM to Apple and Explains Why He’s Short Tesla" (TSLA; GM)

...It is just so dangerous to put valuation (as compared to fraud) shorts on in a bull market.
We have had a general rule, "Don't short Tesla" virtually since the IPO, that we've violated on three occasions, fortunately profitable but it is tough to tell if it was worth the risk.

Finally, if you do short, don't be this guy (no, seriously, don't be this guy):

 

*That was posted to YouTube Aug 23, 2013.

Whitney Tilson on Shorting Tesla (and other stuff) TSLA

We have a few hundred posts on Tesla, going back to before the IPO including some thoughts* on shorting TSLA.
A few links after the jump.

FinViz

$336.09 down $5.44 last.

From ValueWalk

From Whitney Tilsons latest email

1) Michelle Celarier with an in-depth look at Tesla: Elon Musk vs. the Haters, http://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/3756165/investors-pensions/elon-musk-versus-the-haters.html. It was my worst short ever in 2013-14 (from $35 to $205; thank goodness I was long Netflix, which rose a similar amount during the same time frame). Ever since I covered, I’ve been warning all of my short selling friends that it’s a bad short at any price. To be clear, forced to go long or short Tesla here, I’d go short, but we investors aren’t forced to make any investments. Here are my quotes in the article:

Tesla checks all the red flags short sellers look for, but, he shrugs, so what? “I can do the numbers and see how much the company is losing, but you’re short an incredibly maniacally driven CEO, with manically driven engineers assaulting the world’s largest industry. If they succeed, Tesla could be a $400 billion market cap company.”

Tilson has continued to follow the Tesla saga, but has resisted the urge to short it again. “Tesla is a good case study in how the world’s smartest short sellers can get sucked into something that’s just a bad short.”

…“I’d rather short something that’s a scam,” says Tilson. He applauds Tesla’s environmental mission and doesn’t want it to fail. “I don’t want to bet against that in an emotional sense.”

…As Tilson puts it, “I don’t want to be short open-ended situations. The tail risk is just too high.”

2) Good to see my fellow hedgies doing well (though we’re still trailing the market by quite a margin):...MUCH MORE

* April 1, 2013 
Why We Don't Short Tesla: The stock is up 16% On The Day (TSLA)

April 22, 2013 
Tesla Motors Trades At All-Time High (TSLA)

The stock is at $49.75, up 4%, after trading as high as $50.19.
The thing to remember with all-time highs is there is no overhead supply, no shareholders thinking "As soon as I get to breakeven I'm getting out"....

August 2015
Short Selling and The Information Embedded In The Cost To Borrow Stock (TSLA)

August 2016
...For the longest time we had a Don't Short Tesla policy because it showed signs of being a cult stock and cult stocks can kill shorts. Plus it can be very hard to locate stock and very expensive to borrow when you do,
From an August 2015 post:

Morgan Stanley Gives a $465 Target For Tesla, Stock Jumps 5%...

We've publicly shorted Tesla twice on the blog, both times worked out because nothing like this happened during the holding period.
For the most part this April 2013 headline is operative "Why We Don't Short Tesla: The stock is up 16% On The Day (TSLA)". That was at $44.00, up $6.11.
Recently $255.30 up $12.15.
Morgan Stanley was one of the firms that sold the recent half-billion stock offering....

However, after the SolarCity deal and Elon's purchase of SCTY debt (on top of his SpaceX buying SCTY debt) I'm more open to betting against the company, at least tactically if not to zero.
Remember, your mileage may vary, close cover before striking etc.

June 2017
"Einhorn Compares GM to Apple and Explains Why He’s Short Tesla" (TSLA; GM)

...It is just so dangerous to put valuation (as compared to fraud) shorts on in a bull market.
We have had a general rule, "Don't short Tesla" virtually since the IPO, that we've violated on three occasions, fortunately profitable but it is tough to tell if it was worth the risk.

Finally, don't be this guy (no, seriously, don't be this guy):

I Know We Have A General "Don't Short Tesla" Rule But Man.... (TSLA)

....the darn thing is approaching verticality.

The stock is up $39.86 (+8.34%) at $518.01.

FinViz

We have a few hundred posts on Tesla, going back to before the IPO including some thoughts* on shorting TSLA.
Some links after the jump.

From TechCrunch:

8:42 am PST • January 13, 2020

Tesla surges past $500 on back of analyst upgrade, China momentum

Today in regular trading, shares of American electric car manufacturer Tesla surged past the $500 mark.

Tesla, perhaps the most famous electric vehicle company in the world, has had a tumultuous last 12 months on the public markets. The company’s shares have traded as low as $176.99 in the past 52 weeks, and, as has high as $507.50 today.

The company is worth $507.28 per share at the moment, valuing Tesla at $91.38 billion according to Google Finance. As is often pointed out, Tesla is worth more than Ford and General Motors combined. In a slightly more exotic formulation, Tesla is worth just under 64 times as much as Aston Martin.

What’s going on?
Why is Telsa surging? We presume that it’s not the latest from Musk, that “Teslas will soon talk and make fart noises,” according to CNBC. (At least we hope not.)

Instead, an investor upgrade this morning could be the key reason for the company’s gains today. As IBD points out, the new target from Oppenheimer is over $600 per share.

That’s today’s runup explained. The morning’s rally, however, is tied to the company’s rising growing operations in China and global delivery figures....MUCH MORE

We've violated the 'Don't short Tesla' rule a half-dozen times and fortunately escaped with tactical profits but the thing is, in bull markets it is just so dangerous to make valuation shorts. Even shorting outright frauds can kill you if you don't have staying power and/or a friendly banker who won't pull your credit lines at the worst possible moment.

Some previous posts on this topic:

 * April 1, 2013 
Why We Don't Short Tesla: The stock is up 16% On The Day (TSLA)

April 22, 2013 
Tesla Motors Trades At All-Time High (TSLA) 

The stock is at $49.75, up 4%, after trading as high as $50.19.
The thing to remember with all-time highs is there is no overhead supply, no shareholders thinking "As soon as I get to breakeven I'm getting out"....

August 2015
Short Selling and The Information Embedded In The Cost To Borrow Stock (TSLA)

August 2016
...For the longest time we had a Don't Short Tesla policy because it showed signs of being a cult stock and cult stocks can kill shorts. Plus it can be very hard to locate stock and very expensive to borrow when you do,

From an August 2015 post:

Morgan Stanley Gives a $465 Target For Tesla, Stock Jumps 5%...

We've publicly shorted Tesla twice on the blog, both times worked out because nothing like this happened during the holding period.
For the most part this April 2013 headline is operative "Why We Don't Short Tesla: The stock is up 16% On The Day (TSLA)". That was at $44.00, up $6.11.
Recently $255.30 up $12.15.
Morgan Stanley was one of the firms that sold the recent half-billion stock offering....

However, after the SolarCity deal and Elon's purchase of SCTY debt (on top of his SpaceX buying SCTY debt) I'm more open to betting against the company, at least tactically if not to zero.
Remember, your mileage may vary, close cover before striking etc.

June 2017
"Einhorn Compares GM to Apple and Explains Why He’s Short Tesla" (TSLA; GM)

...It is just so dangerous to put valuation (as compared to fraud) shorts on in a bull market.
We have had a general rule, "Don't short Tesla" virtually since the IPO, that we've violated on three occasions, fortunately profitable but it is tough to tell if it was worth the risk.

Finally, if you do short, don't be this guy (no, seriously, don't be this guy):

That was posted to YouTube Aug 23, 2013.

Devonshire Research Group's Short Tesla Thesis, Part II (TSLA)

How can you not love it?
(See disclaimer at bottom) 

The stock is at $216.56 down $3.43 on a generally up day for equities.

From Devonshire Research Group, LLC, May 2016:

Notice of investment interests

As of the publication date of this report, the Devonshire Research Group LLC has a net short position in the stock, put options, bonds, and credit swaps of Tesla Motors, Inc. (“TSLA” or “Tesla”) and stands to realize gains in the event that the price of TSLA’s securities declines over the long run, or if investment sentiment improves the appeal of an expected decline in any of its securities.

Devonshire Research Group recognizes that while its strategy reflects a long term bearish outlook for Tesla’s security instruments, the short term implication of powerful marketing, including the power of social media tweeting by the CEO and his PR firm, well orchestrated and heavily blogged product launches, and a deep and powerful short term media control and attention span, suggests unpredictable short term volatility.

Devonshire Research Group LLC has a long term net short position across multiple security instruments.

Notice of non-affiliation

Part I of this analysis, released publicly in March 2016, was widely praised as effective and fact-driven. Critics of the analysis allege that the work of the Devonshire Research Group is unfairly biased, due to affiliations with industry players who seek to limit the market performance of Tesla. This is interesting, but untrue.

Devonshire Research Group hereby asserts that it does not have professional or business relationships with any of the following organizations:

General Motors 

Ford Toyota 

The City of Detroit 

Koch Industries 

ExxonMobil
Royal Dutch Shell
BP 

CB Insights 

The Illuminati 

Marshall Mathers, aka “Eminem”

On financial innovation and creative accounting...

...Tesla is not a car, battery, or tech company; it is an experimental financial services company and should be regulated as such...

...MUCH MORE (37 page PDF)

Disclaimer:
In places, this piece reads like a parody and probably shouldn't be relied upon as investment advice.
Additionally, for those who have followed the issue closely there isn't a whole lot that hasn't been raised by someone else, somewhere else.

Further, I have no idea who Devonshire is. They seem to have had an okay call on GoPro but I only came across them because of a post at the Tesla Motors Club forum where the first part of DRG's effort was mentioned:

1) I found interesting looking Devonshire Research article:
Tesla Motors Inc (TSLA): Devonshire Research Short
At first their analysis looked quite sophisticated, but their reasoning quickly falls apart once you look closely....

Garnering some thoughts from the commentariat: 

2) It's almost certainly a part of the Koch brothers campaign to undermine Tesla.
3) It does seem to look that way. Here's a list of sites that picked up the release and could be another proxy:...
4) If you actually read that report, it's pretty clear the author(s) are morons. 

For the longest time we had a Don't Short Tesla policy because it showed signs of being a cult stock and cult stocks can kill shorts. Plus it can be very hard to locate stock and very expensive to borrow when you do,
From an August 2015 post:

Morgan Stanley Gives a $465 Target For Tesla, Stock Jumps 5%...

We've publicly shorted Tesla twice on the blog, both times worked out because nothing like this happened during the holding period.
For the most part this April 2013 headline is operative "Why We Don't Short Tesla: The stock is up 16% On The Day (TSLA)". That was at $44.00, up $6.11.
Recently $255.30 up $12.15.
Morgan Stanley was one of the firms that sold the recent half-billion stock offering....

However, after the SolarCity deal and Elon's purchase of SCTY debt (on top of his SpaceX buying SCTY debt) I'm more open to betting against the company, at least tactically if not to zero.
Remember, your mileage may vary, close cover before striking etc.

Finally, don't be this guy (no, seriously, don't be this guy):

On Shorting Tesla (TSLA)

The stock is up $28.37 (+9.74%) on the day, closing at $319.50.
We've been posting on Tesla since before the June 2010 $17 IPO.

Here's one from April Fools Day 2013: "Why We Don't Short Tesla: The stock is up 16% On The Day (TSLA)".

In a nutshell the stock doesn't go down as one would think it should, a behavior that was especially apparent over the last 10 or so days. with very negative press you wouldn't have been surprised by a $60 decline, yet it didn't happen.

Additionally, the stock no longer shows up on the 'Difficult to Locate' list and the cost to borrow is down substantially from the 2% per week we've seen in the past. It is still expensive to borrow but much less so.
Although I have an aversion to paying a cash cost for the chance at a  theoretical profit there is information embedded in the cost-to-borrow:

"The Shorting Premium and Asset Pricing Anomalies".
Here is a two line summary of the paper:

1. The cheap-minus-expensive-to-short (CME) portfolio of stocks has an average monthly gross return of 1.45%, a 0.92% net return, and a 1.55% four-factor alpha

2. Top decile stocks by shorting premium (cheap to short) returned an average of 0.75% (gross) and 0.11 % (net) in the next one month, while bottom decile (expensive to short) returned -0.71% (gross) and -0.17% (net).

HT: Victor Niederhofer's Daily Speculations:
Shorting Fees Are Inversely Proportional to Forward Returns? from Kora Reddy
Declining fees not a positive indicator for short sellers

Then there was  August 2016
...For the longest time we had a Don't Short Tesla policy because it showed signs of being a cult stock and cult stocks can kill shorts. Plus it can be very hard to locate stock and very expensive to borrow when you do,

Here's another post, this time from one year ago:
June 2017
"Einhorn Compares GM to Apple and Explains Why He’s Short Tesla" (TSLA; GM)

...It is just so dangerous to put valuation (as compared to fraud) shorts on in a bull market.
We have had a general rule, "Don't short Tesla" virtually since the IPO, that we've violated on three occasions, fortunately profitable but it is tough to tell if it was worth the risk.

We're now at four violations of the rule and still profitable but it is a dangerous little game.
Finally, don't be this guy (no, seriously, don't be this guy):

So, How Was Tesla's Purchase Of SolarCity Not a Fraud? (TSLA; SCTY)

We've been posting on this nasty bit of alchemy for years, some links below.
Today FT Alphaville's editor commends to our attention a Reuters article from Friday:

Tesla largely responsible for slide in U.S. home solar sales

(Reuters) - After years of double-digit growth, home solar installations in the United States are poised to fall for the first time this year, according to a report released on Thursday by GTM Research.

The reason? An analysis of installation data suggests that most of the slowdown is traceable to a single company: Tesla Inc (TSLA.O), which acquired sister company SolarCity about a year ago.

For years, SolarCity, with early backing from Tesla CEO Elon Musk, was the biggest player in residential solar and the driving force behind that market's supercharged growth.

When Tesla bought SolarCity last year, Musk called the acquisition a "no-brainer," saying the two companies shared "the same overarching goal of sustainable energy."

But under Tesla's ownership, the company has largely stopped its aggressive marketing campaigns and ambitious expansion.

As a result, Tesla's rooftop solar installations have fallen sharply each quarter this year compared to last. In the third quarter, installations were off by 42 percent over the previous year.

Tesla declined to comment for this story, but has previously said that while sales are down, margins are up. The company expects its fourth-quarter solar installation numbers to be higher than those of the third quarter.....MUCH MORE 

$340.61, down $2.84 on the day

Just a few of our comments on SCTY/TSLA:  
The Short Argument Against Tesla

Mr. Chanos was taken to the cleaners by Mr. Musk on SolarCity, had Tesla not bought it, SCTY was on its way to bankruptcy court. We have quite a few posts on the bad blood between the two, use the 'Search Blog' box search term SCTY if interested.... 

"Tesla cites performance reviews as it fires SolarCity employees, though workers say reviews never took place" (TSLA)
The question that comes to mind is: Was the acquisition of SCTY a fraudulent altruistic stupid brilliant bailout of the Rive boys and maybe even Elon himself? 

Whitney Tilson on Shorting Tesla (and other stuff) TSLA
April 1, 2013 
Why We Don't Short Tesla: The stock is up 16% On The Day (TSLA)
August 2016
...For the longest time we had a Don't Short Tesla policy because it showed signs of being a cult stock and cult stocks can kill shorts. Plus it can be very hard to locate stock and very expensive to borrow when you do,
However, after the SolarCity deal and Elon's purchase of SCTY debt (on top of his SpaceX buying SCTY debt) I'm more open to betting against the company, at least tactically if not to zero.
Remember, your mileage may vary, close cover before striking etc.

June 2017
"Einhorn Compares GM to Apple and Explains Why He’s Short Tesla" (TSLA; GM)

...It is just so dangerous to put valuation (as compared to fraud) shorts on in a bull market.
We have had a general rule, "Don't short Tesla" virtually since the IPO, that we've violated on three occasions, fortunately profitable but it is tough to tell if it was worth the risk.

Why SolarCity Has Become a Shell of Its Former Self Since Tesla Buyout (TSLA)
This is a $3,000,000,000 scandal and no one seems to care.... 

SolarCity/Tesla: Analysts React (SCTY; TSLA)

Not only is Tesla taking on almost $3 billion in SolarCity debt, it is also buying into the problem of even more negative cash flows, both Operating and FreeCashFlow.

Which of course, along with the corp. governance nastiness, explains why Tesla has lost almost 11% of its market cap, amounting to $3.14 billion on the 133 million shares out and more than the entire market cap for SCTY (98,296,422 shares at $22.30, up 5.2%).

The market is saying SCTY is worth less than zero to Tesla.

We'll have a lot more to say about this in the coming days....

Tesla-Solar City: Cousins Shouldn't Get Married (to each other) TSLA; SCTY--UPDATED

So, Who Will Write A Fairness Opinion On The Tesla/SolarCity Deal? (TSLA; SCTY)
 
More On SolarCity/Tesla and Fairness Opinions (SCTY; TSLA)
"Elon Musk Faces Cash Squeeze at Tesla, SolarCity" (TSLA; SCTY)

"Short-Seller Chanos Calls Tesla-SolarCity Merger 'Crazy': CNBC Conference" (TSLA; SCTY)   

Today In Depreciation: Does Tesla Really Understand What It’s Buying in SolarCity? (TSLA; SCTY)

Tesla, SolarCity Tumble Ahead Of New Merger Financials (TSLA; SCTY)

Attentive reader may have noticed we didn't cover Mr. Musk's press conference on the roof tile solar panels last Friday. We've been at the market long enough to recognize a master magician's "hey, look at this" misdirection. The tiles aren't going to matter to anyone for at least a year, probably two, and by then I would expect the market to have changed to the  point that they will be recognized as a niche at best.

The oohing and ahing from the assembled journos was kinda funny though; in a naïve, never had to bet real money sort of way.... 

"Wait, Tesla Motors Might Need to Raise $12 Billion?!?!" (TSLA; SCTY)

We've been thinking $6 billion to cover the build-out of the factories in Fremont, CA and Nevada and the New York SolarCity plant along with funding the higher cash burn after the SCTY merger.

And we were at the high end....

How Do We Know James Chanos Got Under Elon Musk's Skin? (TSLA SCTY)
Chanos has been living rent-free in Elon's head for over a year.
The departure this week of the second of Mr. Musk's two cousins, the Rive boys who had been running SolarCity reminded me I had promised another example of the toll the stress of keeping all the plates spinning may be taking on Elon.
In Monday's "Being Told Tesla Exists Because of Tax Breaks and Subsidies Drives Elon Musk Crazy (TSLA)" I said:

Regarding Mr. Musk, it is starting to appear he's a bit thin-skinned, we'll have another example later today or tomorrow....

went into a meeting and forgot until today.

Here's the set-up for this example. Back in the fall of 2015 Chanos was pretty vocal about SolarCity being the quintessential short-it-to-zero-stock. The company was burning enormous amounts of cash, had no path to profitability, and couldn't get anyone but SpaceX to buy their debt.
On October 21 SCTY shared their financials and we posted "Pray For Elon Musk: SolarCity Drops 21% (SCTY)".

The public relations people earned their keep with "SolarCity pivots to slower growth mode" and I recounted how earlier, in August, Lyndon Rive, SolarCity's CEO was told Chanos was shorting his stock and  "SolarCity's CEO When Told Jim Chanos Is Shorting His Stock: "First I've ever heard of the guy" (SCTY)".

Oh dear.
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
SolarCity's CEO is an ahistorical idot.
I mean we're all idots from time to time but most of us at least try to conceal our idot-hood from the freakin' media!

Well, Mr. Chanos apparently took note of Rive's comment and the next day, while being interviewed on CNBC started out with "One of our big short positions in the renewable space is SolarCity".
The interviewer says "Elon Musk's company" and Chanos replied "Who?"
Here's the video if you care to see it, it's pretty funny: "SolarCity: Jim Chanos On Elon Who? (SCTY)".
Fast-forward to the week before last and, via Sujeet Indap, the FT's Lex US editor:
The Journal does a story on Tesla's need for cash,
One of the fanbois tells Elon not to sweat it,
Mr. Musk uses a variant of the 2015 trash talk: ...["never heard of them"]...

...The upshot? Elon got to use the line, the Rive boys got to say "thanks cuz" for turning their going-to-be-worthless SCTY stock into TSLA, I get to do this post and Chanos got screwed by the self-dealing bail-out but hey, 3 out of 4 ain't bad.
Plus, the TSLA the cousins received may or may not be worth the current price after the model 3 roll-out.
We shall see. 

And many more.
Thanks to Ms Kaminska for the latest heads-up 

"Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison scores $12 billion gain on his Tesla stock in under 3 years" (ORCL; TSLA)

 Have I mentioned our general "Don't short Tesla" admonition?*

From Business Insider:

• Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison has scored a $12 billion gain on his Tesla investment.
• The technology billionaire bought the equivalent of 15 million shares in Elon Musk's automaker before joining its board in December 2018.
• Ellison's stake has ballooned in value from about $1 billion to $13 billion since then.
• Musk is close friends with Ellison and visited him on his Hawaiian island in December.

Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison has racked up a $12 billion gain on his Tesla stock in just over two years.

The software giant's technology chief and former CEO purchased the equivalent of 15 million shares in Elon Musk's electric-vehicle company before joining its board in December 2018.

Tesla's stock price has surged about 1,200% since then, boosting the value of Ellison's roughly 1.6% stake from around $1 billion to more than $13 billion.

Ellison is Tesla's second-biggest individual shareholder after Musk. He revealed his bet on the automaker was his second-largest investment during a call with Oracle analysts in October 2018.

The tech billionaire also described Musk and himself as "very close friends" on the call. Indeed, Musk flew to Lanai - Ellison's Hawaiian island - last month to get some advice from the Oracle executive....

....MORE

Here are a couple posts from a year ago:

January 13, 2020
I Know We Have A General "Don't Short Tesla" Rule But Man.... (TSLA)

....the darn thing is approaching verticality.

The stock is up $39.86 (+8.34%) at $518.01. [103.60 x 5:1 split]

FinViz

We have a few hundred posts on Tesla, going back to before the IPO including some thoughts* on shorting TSLA.
Some links after the jump.

From TechCrunch:....MUCH MORE

And:

February 3, 2020
Elon Musk Says Tesla Will Host Hackathon at his House, Stock Jumps (TSLA)

The stock is up 10.75% (+$69.93) at $720.50.
The stock isn't up because of the hackathon, I don't know why the stock is up.
Here's the story at Yahoo:
Elon Musk says Tesla will host hackathon at his house

A young man asked me this morning pre-market if it was a sign when the world's 7th richest person, Oracle's Larry Ellison bet a billion cash on TSLA back in 2018.

I told him we thought it was important enough to note on the blog:

December 28, 2018 
Oracle's Larry Ellison To Join Tesla's Board (TSLA)
The stock is up five bucks, $321.43 last. 

but not that important.
That may have been an inaccurate interpretation.

Mr. Ellison's net worth is estimated by Forbes to be $66.9 billion, up $1.2 billion this morning.
Mr. Musk's net worth is now estimated at $37.1 billion up $2.3 bil. on the day and moving him into the #26 spot.

For what it's worth, the "Tesla to $4000 $6000" lady now says $7000.

If that happens Mr. Ellison's 3 million shares would be worth $21 B and Elon would be the richest person in the world and approaching Fugger and Mansa Musa as the richest of all time.

Today the stock is the equivalent of $4184 and Mr. Musk is the richest person in the world.

And someday our "Don't short Tesla" will change, but not today.

Tesla: More on the $67.12 Valuation (TSLA)

Following up on Friday's "Sure, He Called the Top In Apple and He Called the Bottom in Facebook But Tesla Fair Market Value at $67.12? (TSLA)".
From Musing on Markets:

My post on Tesla must have touched some nerves because I got more than my usual share of backlash from Tesla bulls. While some of it was just vitriol, many contained interesting counter arguments to mine. I thought it  would be useful to play devil’s advocate and present the case for being bullish on Tesla. I have to tell you that I was not able to convince myself but I may convince you.

Before I make the case for Tesla bulls, I would like to be clear on two points. First, I have no economic or emotional stake in the outcome of the valuation. I don't have a short position on the stock, and don’t plan to, and I have never owned Tesla and don’t regret missing out on the run-up either. Second, notwithstanding the hyperbole that has prefaced some of the press descriptions of my post, I don’t consider myself a valuation guru, expert or prognosticator.  If you are bullish on Tesla, I don’t view you as a sucker or a dunce and I can think of at least three justifications for your bullishness. 

A. Tesla has viable paths to higher value: In presenting my estimate of value for Tesla, I thought I was fairly explicit that it was “my” valuation and not “the” valuation of Tesla. One reason I posted my spreadsheet and left it open, for you the change, is because I understand that there are and always will be differences of opinion on the future of a company, especially one as explosive as Tesla. As I see it there are three possible paths to a value higher than the current price. 

1. The disruptor: It is possible that Tesla is one of those rare companies that disrupts an entire business and changes the definition of what comprises success. Just as Amazon upended the retail business and Apple the smart phone business in the last decade, it is possible that Tesla will create a new paradigm for a successful automobile company: a company that generates Ford-like revenues with Porsche-like margins. (My valuation for Tesla, the disruptor)
2. The power train/battery master: I may have misclassified Tesla as an automobile company and that it’s real innovations are in the power train and battery technology that will make electric cars viable. Ted Lim, one of the commenters on my Tesla post brings a great deal more knowledge than I do to this possibility and he points out the potential for Tesla to become the supplier  to other automakers making electric cars. The potential market for batteries and other original equipment may be smaller than for cars but the margins may be better. (My valuation for Tesla, the OEM company)
3. The "first mover": If Tesla is more technology than automobile company, there is the possibility that if it can establish itself as the leader in the business, there may be a tipping point, where size feeds itself. In practical terms, you are arguing that if Tesla charging and service stations are more extensive than the competitors, buyers of electric cars will be more likely to buy Teslas, thus making it the "electric car" company. (My valuation for Tesla, the network winner).

While I view these paths as narrow and difficult to sustain, I can see why others have a different point of view. There is one note of caution I would add about profitability. Some of you have pointed out that Tesla already has a 25% profit margin and that my assumption that it will generate a pre-tax margin of 12.5% is therefore way too pessimistic. There are two reasons to not get carried away with the current margin. The first is that margin that Tesla is reporting is a gross profit margin, which is significantly higher than an operating margin or a net margin; there is many a cost between the gross and the net. The second is that having a high gross margin, when you are selling relatively few cars at a high price is easier to do than maintaining that margin as you scale up....MORE

We have posts on Tesla going back to the IPO, if interested use the search blog box upper left.
A grab bag:
April 1, 2013 
Why We Don't Short Tesla: The stock is up 16% On The Day (TSLA)
April 22, 2013 
Tesla Motors Trades At All-Time High (TSLA)

The stock is at $49.75, up 4%, after trading as high as $50.19.
The thing to remember with all-time highs is there is no overhead supply, no shareholders thinking "As soon as I get to breakeven I'm getting out"....

May 9, 2013
"10 milestones Tesla hopes will make it a $43 billion (cap) company" (TSLA)

Tesla Q2 Sales Miss Expectations, "Severe" Battery Production Shortfall Blamed (TSLA)

Except for the execution risk, and the financial risk, and the macro risk, and the supply chain risk, I see no risk at all.
The stock closed down $8.99 (2.49%) at $352.62.
From ZeroHedge:

Heading into today's car delivery estimate, Tesla had previewed that for the first half of 2017 it expects a substantial jump in vehicle deliveries. Recall that management guided for a 61% to 71% increase in Model S and Model X deliveries during H1 of 2017 compared with the first half of 2016. To achieve this goal, Tesla would need to deliver 47,000 to 50,000 vehicles in Q1 and Q2 combined. Moments ago Tesla announced its first half vehicle deliveries, and it made the low end of this guidance: just barely, with 47,100 autos delivered.

Tesla delivered just over 22,000 vehicles in Q2, of which just over 12,000 were Model S and just over 10,000 were Model X. This represents a 53% increase over Q2 2016. Total vehicle deliveries in the first half of 2017 were approximately 47,100.

However, where Tesla clearly failed to deliver was relative to sellside consensus which expected the electric car maker to sell 22,912 cars in Q2. Instead, the official number was 22,000. Which explains the very next sentence, in which Elon Musk delivered the latest the mea culpa why the company once again failed to hit expected deliveries.

The major factor affecting Tesla's Q2 deliveries was a severe production shortfall of 100 kWh battery packs, which are made using new technologies on new production lines. The technology challenge grows exponentially with energy density. Until early June, production averaged about 40% below demand. Once this was resolved, June orders and deliveries were strong, ranking as one of the best in Tesla history.

Odd how this production bottleneck was never made clear to any of the analysts covering the company so they could adjust their forecasts accordingly.
Tesla also issued a conditional guidance for second half, in which Tesla said that "provided global economic conditions do not worsen considerably, we are confident that combined deliveries of Model S and Model X in the second half of 2017 will likely exceed deliveries in the first half of 2017."

And since Tesla will likely miss, or once again just barely make its guidance, we look forward to seeing just what economic conditions will "worsen considerably" preventing Musk from hitting yet another projection....MORE

We have a few hundred posts on Tesla going back to before the IPO. Here are some of the more recent, they weren't real positive:

June 14
More on Ron Baron's "Tesla to $1000" Call (TSLA)

FinViz

...Our last comment on Mr. Chanos' position was in May 31's "Hedge Funds: SALT Conference Losing Luster":

I don't think we even covered it this year although I did look at Chanos on Tesla.
He was early....

Looking at the last couple weeks on the chart above, yup, he was early.
But, and that's a big but, the execution skill that will be required to hit the 500,000 and above production targets is almost otherworldly and I have a suspicion we will be violating our "Don't short Tesla" admonition in a big way.
If stock is available.
And doesn't cost 100% per year to get hold of.

June 13
Tesla to $1000; "Bitcoin May Hit $1,000,000"; Act Now Before It's Too Late! (and potcoin) 

June 8
Signposts: "Goldman Sachs Mulls the Death of Value Investing"
I was thinking of putting a post together on how the momentum stocks that have been up are the ones that are up today, Tesla up 10 bucks, NVIDIA up 10.75, etc. when this story was brought to my attention....

June 7 
Would you let DJ Elon (E-to-the-Musk) set the playlist for your roadtrip? (TSLA)
No.
And not just* because this doesn't seem like the highest use of AI, more like a magician's "Hey, Look at this!"... 

June 6
"Tesla: First $439, Then..." (TSLA) 

June 2
"Einhorn Compares GM to Apple and Explains Why He’s Short Tesla" (TSLA; GM)
...It is just so dangerous to put valuation (as compared to fraud) shorts on in a bull market.
We have had a general rule, "Don't short Tesla" virtually since the IPO, that we've violated on three occasions, fortunately profitable but it is tough to tell if it was worth the risk....

May 18 
Elon Musk Says Tesla Does Not Deserve Its Market Capitalization, Stock up $7.00 On the Mention (TSLA)

Here's another one we cheered on, May 2015- Feb 2017:

Reuters Exclusive - "Tesla to close a dozen solar facilities in nine states: documents" (TSLA)

Jim Chanos weeps at what might have been.*
From Reuters:

Electric car maker Tesla Inc's (TSLA.O) move last week to cut 9 percent of its workforce will sharply downsize the residential solar business it bought two years ago in a controversial $2.6 billion deal, according to three internal company documents and seven current and former Tesla solar employees.
The latest cuts to the division that was once SolarCity - a sales and installation company founded by two cousins of Tesla CEO Elon Musk - include closing about a dozen installation facilities, according to internal company documents, and ending a retail partnership with Home Depot Inc (HD.N) that the current and former employees said generated about half of its sales.

About 60 installation facilities remain open, according to an internal company list reviewed by Reuters. An internal company email named 14 facilities slated for closure, but the other list included only 13 of those locations.

Tesla declined to comment on which sites it planned to shut down, how many employees would lose their jobs or what percentage of the solar workforce they represent.
The company said that cuts to its overall energy team - including batteries to store power - were in line with the broader 9 percent staff cut.

"We continue to expect that Tesla's solar and battery business will be the same size as automotive over the long term," the company said in a statement to Reuters.
The operational closures, which have not been previously reported, raise new questions about the viability of cash-strapped Tesla's solar business and Musk's rationale for a merger he once called a "no brainer" - but some investors have panned as a bailout of an affiliated firm at the expense of Tesla shareholders. Before the merger, Musk had served as chairman of SolarCity's board of directors.

The installation offices that the internal email said were targeted for closure were located in California, Maryland, New Jersey, Texas, New York, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Arizona and Delaware.

The company also fired dozens of solar customer service staffers at call centres in Nevada and Utah, according to the former Tesla employees, some of whom were terminated in last week's cuts. Those employees spoke on condition of anonymity because making public comments could violate the terms of their severance packages....

...MUCH MORE

*See also:

Dec. 2017
So, How Was Tesla's Purchase Of SolarCity Not a Fraud? (TSLA; SCTY) 

We've been posting on this nasty bit of alchemy for years, some links below.
Today FT Alphaville's editor commends to our attention a Reuters article from Friday:

Tesla largely responsible for slide in U.S. home solar sales...

That was Izabella Kaminska with the heads-up. Her confrère, David Keohane (now FT-Paris) was also on SCTY with quite a few Further Reading posts linking to it—as well as SunEdison, another bit o'financial engineering gone wrong. Fond memories of SUNE; who can forget the time its death throes led to one of my favorite headlines:

SunEdison Investigates Itself, Finds No Wrongdoing, Stock Jumps 75% (SUNE)

and another, to which Mr. Keohane kindly linked:

Today In SunEdison: Down 50% But Still Trading (SUNE)

It appears we have entered the realm of one of Zeno's Paradoxes, namely the Paradox of the Tortoise and Achilles, that no matter how many days SUNE drops 50% it never reaches zero. 21 cents, down 22 cents last....

The stock had traded above $32 in July 2015. The bankruptcy wiped out $16 billion in debt with the equity having declined by an additional $10 billion.
Good times.

Anyhoo, back to some of our prior Solar City posts:

The Short Argument Against Tesla
Mr. Chanos was taken to the cleaners by Mr. Musk on SolarCity: had Tesla not bought it, SCTY was on its way to bankruptcy court. We have quite a few posts on the bad blood between the two, use the 'Search Blog' box search term SCTY if interested.... 

"Tesla cites performance reviews as it fires SolarCity employees, though workers say reviews never took place" (TSLA)
The question that comes to mind is: Was the acquisition of SCTY a fraudulent altruistic stupid brilliant bailout of the Rive boys and maybe even Elon himself? 

Whitney Tilson on Shorting Tesla (and other stuff) TSLA
April 1, 2013 
Why We Don't Short Tesla: The stock is up 16% On The Day (TSLA)
August 2016
...For the longest time we had a Don't Short Tesla policy because it showed signs of being a cult stock and cult stocks can kill shorts. Plus it can be very hard to locate stock and very expensive to borrow when you do,
However, after the SolarCity deal and Elon's purchase of SCTY debt (on top of his SpaceX buying SCTY debt) I'm more open to betting against the company, at least tactically if not to zero.
Remember, your mileage may vary, close cover before striking etc.

June 2017
"Einhorn Compares GM to Apple and Explains Why He’s Short Tesla" (TSLA; GM)
..It is just so dangerous to put valuation (as compared to fraud) shorts on in a bull market.
We have had a general rule, "Don't short Tesla" virtually since the IPO, that we've violated on three occasions, fortunately profitable but it is tough to tell if it was worth the risk. 

Why SolarCity Has Become a Shell of Its Former Self Since Tesla Buyout (TSLA)
This is a $3,000,000,000 scandal and no one seems to care.... 

SolarCity/Tesla: Analysts React (SCTY; TSLA)

Not only is Tesla taking on almost $3 billion in SolarCity debt, it is also buying into the problem of even more negative cash flows, both Operating and FreeCashFlow.

Which of course, along with the corp. governance nastiness, explains why Tesla has lost almost 11% of its market cap, amounting to $3.14 billion on the 133 million shares out and more than the entire market cap for SCTY (98,296,422 shares at $22.30, up 5.2%).

The market is saying SCTY is worth less than zero to Tesla.

We'll have a lot more to say about this in the coming days....

Tesla-Solar City: Cousins Shouldn't Get Married (to each other) TSLA; SCTY--UPDATED

So, Who Will Write A Fairness Opinion On The Tesla/SolarCity Deal? (TSLA; SCTY)
 
More On SolarCity/Tesla and Fairness Opinions (SCTY; TSLA)
 
"Elon Musk Faces Cash Squeeze at Tesla, SolarCity" (TSLA; SCTY)

"Short-Seller Chanos Calls Tesla-SolarCity Merger 'Crazy': CNBC Conference" (TSLA; SCTY)   

Today In Depreciation: Does Tesla Really Understand What It’s Buying in SolarCity? (TSLA; SCTY)

Tesla, SolarCity Tumble Ahead Of New Merger Financials (TSLA; SCTY)

Attentive reader may have noticed we didn't cover Mr. Musk's press conference on the roof tile solar panels last Friday. We've been at the market long enough to recognize a master magician's "hey, look at this" misdirection. The tiles aren't going to matter to anyone for at least a year, probably two, and by then I would expect the market to have changed to the  point that they will be recognized as a niche at best.

The oohing and ahing from the assembled journos was kinda funny though; in a naïve, never had to bet real money sort of way.... 

"Wait, Tesla Motors Might Need to Raise $12 Billion?!?!" (TSLA; SCTY)

We've been thinking $6 billion to cover the build-out of the factories in Fremont, CA and Nevada and the New York SolarCity plant along with funding the higher cash burn after the SCTY merger.

And we were at the high end....

How Do We Know James Chanos Got Under Elon Musk's Skin? (TSLA SCTY)

Chanos has been living rent-free in Elon's head for over a year.
The departure this week of the second of Mr. Musk's two cousins, the Rive boys who had been running SolarCity reminded me I had promised another example of the toll the stress of keeping all the plates spinning may be taking on Elon.
In Monday's "Being Told Tesla Exists Because of Tax Breaks and Subsidies Drives Elon Musk Crazy (TSLA)" I said:

Regarding Mr. Musk, it is starting to appear he's a bit thin-skinned, we'll have another example later today or tomorrow....

went into a meeting and forgot until today.

Here's the set-up for this example. Back in the fall of 2015 Chanos was pretty vocal about SolarCity being the quintessential short-it-to-zero-stock. The company was burning enormous amounts of cash, had no path to profitability, and couldn't get anyone but SpaceX to buy their debt.
On October 21 SCTY shared their financials and we posted "Pray For Elon Musk: SolarCity Drops 21% (SCTY)".

The public relations people earned their keep with "SolarCity pivots to slower growth mode" and I recounted how earlier, in August, Lyndon Rive, SolarCity's CEO was told Chanos was shorting his stock and  "SolarCity's CEO When Told Jim Chanos Is Shorting His Stock: "First I've ever heard of the guy" (SCTY)".

Oh dear.
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
SolarCity's CEO is an ahistorical idot.
I mean we're all idots from time to time but most of us at least try to conceal our idot-hood from the freakin' media!

Well, Mr. Chanos apparently took note of Rive's comment and the next day, while being interviewed on CNBC started out with "One of our big short positions in the renewable space is SolarCity".
The interviewer says "Elon Musk's company" and Chanos replied "Who?"

Here's the video if you care to see it, it's pretty funny: "SolarCity: Jim Chanos On Elon Who? (SCTY)".

Fast-forward to the week before last and, via Sujeet Indap, the FT's Lex US editor:
The Journal does a story on Tesla's need for cash,
One of the fanbois tells Elon not to sweat it,
Mr. Musk uses a variant of the 2015 trash talk: ...["never heard of them"]...

...The upshot? Elon got to use the line, the Rive boys got to say "thanks cuz" for turning their going-to-be-worthless SCTY stock into TSLA, I get to do this post and Chanos got screwed by the self-dealing bail-out but hey, 3 out of 4 ain't bad.
Plus, the TSLA the cousins received may or may not be worth the current price after the model 3 roll-out.
We shall see. 

And many more.

"How Jim Chanos Uses Cynicism, Chutzpah — and a Secret Twitter Account — to Take on Markets (and Elon Musk)"

From Institutional Investor, September 17, 2018:

The LeBron James of short-selling talks Ponzinomics.

It’s a sweltering, 95-degree August day in Manhattan, but Jim Chanos — fresh off a two-week holiday, rocking a sharkskin suit — is pumped: Elon Musk had once again called a hero of the Thai cave rescue a pedophile.It’s 1:30 in the afternoon. Chanos bolts through the door to his office building on West 55th Street, grabs the journalist waiting for him, and, on the elevator ride to his eighth-floor office, fills her in on the latest news.

“Musk is at it again. He’s doubling down on his pedophile comment,” Chanos says, amusement noticeable in his voice. Minutes earlier the CEO of Tesla Motors — who is already under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission for a tweet about taking the company private — had returned to an earlier tweetstorm in which he accused the British cave diver of being a “pedo guy”.

“You don't think it’s strange he hasn’t sued me?" Musk tweeted at 12:30 p.m. on August 28. Tesla shares immediately began to slide, and within hours the diver’s lawyer reportedly informed Musk that he would, indeed, be sued.

Recent months have seen one bizarre event after another in the saga of the electric-automaker and its iconic boss, and Chanos has been watching it all. The 61-year-old founder of hedge fund Kynikos Associates announced his short against Tesla in the fall of 2015 and has been nursing losses ever since — for despite a raft of bad news and the increasingly controversial, and potentially illegal, behavior of Musk, Tesla’s stock, while off significantly from its highs, has stubbornly refused to crash.

The Tesla short made for a tense working vacation for Chanos, who had left New York for his annual trek to the Greek island of Mykonos on August 9. That was just two days after Musk tweeted that he was considering taking Tesla private — with the now-infamous “funding secured” line — and Wall Street went into a frenzy trying to see if it could happen.

Chanos was skeptical.

“I thought immediately it was not true, because I know Elon Musk at this point,” he said during a two-hour interview that touched on everything from hedge funds and short-selling to politics and the history of fraud, then, eventually, got back to social media and Musk. “The way it came out during market hours, right after the Saudi passive investment announcement [the Saudi sovereign wealth fund has reportedly taken a 5 percent stake in Tesla] — it was so irresponsible, number one, and was not clearly vetted, because no one who vetted that would’ve let him put that out.”

Although Kynikos’s two senior portfolio partners, Chuck Hobbs and David Glaymon, were monitoring the stock from New York, Chanos couldn’t stay away from the news, even in Mykonos. “It was breaking so fast,” Chanos says. As the stock rallied, he sold more shares short.
Finally, at 11:00 p.m. on Friday, August 24, Musk ended the suspense with a statement on Tesla’s blog. He had decided against going private.

Tesla has been the biggest short in the market for much of this past year, with nearly $10 billion wagered that its stock will fall. Chanos is hardly the only one who takes that view. Kynikos now runs less than $2 billion, and with individual short positions capped at 5 percent each for risk management purposes, Tesla represents at most about $100 million of the firm’s total short bets, which it currently has on 65 companies.

Win or lose, the Tesla short won’t make much of a difference to Kynikos’s bottom line. But for Chanos — who claims he’s also advising much larger “pools of capital” on their Tesla shorts — there’s more than money at stake.

---

Kynikos is the lone short-selling hedge fund of any size — and the only one that that has been in business since 1985.

That’s no mean feat, as the stock market has risen almost 1,500 percent since Kynikos’s debut. Chanos has lived through at least three bear markets — the 1987 crash, the bursting of the dot-com bubble in 2000, and the global financial crisis of 2008 — and he’s waiting patiently for the next one.
“I’m not saying it’s the top of the market, but on the other hand, bear markets haven’t been outlawed,” he quips.

Chanos, of course, is already a legend. He will go down in Wall Street history for predicting the demise of Enron Corp., whose collapse resulted in a wave of prosecutions and the imprisonment of top executives — the kind of harsh penalties that have not been seen since.
But that was in 2001 — 17 years ago.

Since the financial crisis year of 2008, Kynikos’s shorts overall have been bleeding red ink, and investors have bailed. Kynikos has lost almost three quarters of its assets since the end of 2008. This year alone, its funds had fallen between 9 percent and 19 percent through July (net of fees), depending on the fund, according to a report to investors Institutional Investor has seen that has not been previously reported on.

“It has been one giant short-squeeze market,” he moans.

Take Tesla. To Chanos it represents a market euphoria last witnessed during the dot-com craze. Although Tesla is unprofitable and loaded with debt, its market cap rivals that of General Motors. A rush to meet production targets on its midprice Model 3 sedan this year has been accompanied by defective cars, unhappy employees-turned-whistleblowers, and a stream of exiting executives — not to mention ever-stranger outbursts by a CEO under enormous pressure to meet the projections he promised shareholders. The current stock price of about $299 per share (above Chanos’s average cost of $250) is based on ambitious plans for the future. But what most people are missing, says Chanos, is that Tesla has quit making the capital investments required to realize those ambitions. It can no longer afford to do so.

But facts don’t seem to matter. As Chanos reminds us, referring to President Trump and his supporters, we are living in “a post-truth environment.” That translates, he argues, into a mood in which investors are also willing to suspend disbelief.

“If we don’t hold our leaders to that standard,” muses Chanos, “then why should we hold managements to that standard? I think that’s part of where we are now.”
Chanos, who jokes that he is considered an anarchist on Wall Street for his liberal political views, is not prone to proselytizing. He doesn’t write letters to the Securities and Exchange Commission or publish long treatises on his short theses. Though he believes the political environment has an impact on the market, he never counts on the SEC to take down the bad guys. “They’re archaeologists, not detectives,” he scoffs.

Chanos can appear world-weary and somewhat guarded — but, as the saying goes, in every cynic beats the bleeding heart of an idealist. “There’s more than a little of the crusader in him,” says longtime friend Jim Grant, founder and editor of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer. “He would like to clean up Wall Street. He would like to improve the quality of corporate reporting. He would like to rid Wall Street of the scoundrels and clean up corporate management.”

That might explain what happened earlier this summer....

...MUCH MORE

HT: Barry Ritholtz but we don't have a specific post. So here's The Big Picture.