Elon Musk: Always A Douche

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

Well anyway he made a successful (well...successful-ish) car company so now he is worth more than the entire annual economic output of Pakistan. That is what baffles me. How?

Tesla is not valued like a car company.  For over a decade, particularly before his (public) hard right turn, his fanboys in the tech community were all about how "Tesla isn't a car company!!!!1111one", and that seems to have bled over to enough investors to jack the valuation.  Tesla is valued like a tech company, one focusing on energy technology (with a little helping of meme stock as well).  The key stock price statistics (P/E ratio, price/book ratio, etc) are in the neighborhood of Alphabet or Meta rather than GM or Toyota.

He, personally, is the one who caused that shift in perception.  I'm surprised it's lasted this long, because the lion's share of their revenue still comes from selling cars.  Now that he's hitched himself to Trump, though, I think it's going to get worse as he continues to throw out all these wild ideas that Tesla will continue to fail to deliver, but with a much higher profile than before.

[HVC]

Well anyway he made a successful (well...successful-ish) car company so now he is worth more than the entire annual economic output of Pakistan. That is what baffles me. How?

Stocks were the board games of rich people. Then it got popular with normal people and it's broken now.

[Neil]

I wonder how much of Obama's failure was caused by him being a relatively junior senator who came out of nowhere.  His electoral victory gave him the impression that he should be able to just lead the party, but people like Reid, Levin, Kerry, Feinstein, Pelosi and other long-serving Democrats didn't necessarily feel the need to follow him.  He didn't really seem to have the skills to wrangle his allies, whereas men like LBJ or Trump understand how to press an advantage and men like Reagan or Clinton showed a lot of ability to keep their team onside with softer skills. 

[garbon]

I wonder how much of Obama's failure was caused by him being a relatively junior senator who came out of nowhere.  His electoral victory gave him the impression that he should be able to just lead the party, but people like Reid, Levin, Kerry, Feinstein, Pelosi and other long-serving Democrats didn't necessarily feel the need to follow him.  He didn't really seem to have the skills to wrangle his allies, whereas men like LBJ or Trump understand how to press an advantage and men like Reagan or Clinton showed a lot of ability to keep their team onside with softer skills. 

Obviously a lot. The Reid and Pelosi didn't give him no mind those first two years when dems had congress.

[crazy canuck]

Well anyway he made a successful (well...successful-ish) car company so now he is worth more than the entire annual economic output of Pakistan. That is what baffles me. How?

Tesla is not valued like a car company.  For over a decade, particularly before his (public) hard right turn, his fanboys in the tech community were all about how "Tesla isn't a car company!!!!1111one", and that seems to have bled over to enough investors to jack the valuation.  Tesla is valued like a tech company, one focusing on energy technology (with a little helping of meme stock as well).  The key stock price statistics (P/E ratio, price/book ratio, etc) are in the neighborhood of Alphabet or Meta rather than GM or Toyota.

He, personally, is the one who caused that shift in perception.  I'm surprised it's lasted this long, because the lion's share of their revenue still comes from selling cars.  Now that he's hitched himself to Trump, though, I think it's going to get worse as he continues to throw out all these wild ideas that Tesla will continue to fail to deliver, but with a much higher profile than before.

As an added bonus, he won't have to worry about the Security Commission coming after him for making statements in breach of his regularly obligations.

[crazy canuck]

I wonder how much of Obama's failure was caused by him being a relatively junior senator who came out of nowhere.  His electoral victory gave him the impression that he should be able to just lead the party, but people like Reid, Levin, Kerry, Feinstein, Pelosi and other long-serving Democrats didn't necessarily feel the need to follow him.  He didn't really seem to have the skills to wrangle his allies, whereas men like LBJ or Trump understand how to press an advantage and men like Reagan or Clinton showed a lot of ability to keep their team onside with softer skills. 

Obviously a lot. The Reid and Pelosi didn't give him no mind those first two years when dems had congress.

But he did have his initiatives passed in the first two years. The argument seems to be that what he was proposing wasn't all that great given the rare opportunity Democrats had to make changes.

[The Minsky Moment]

naming a vehicle module after a reference from a 1980s Mel Brooks movie isn't exactly "cool" b

 
You need to take that back.
That was the coolest thing Musk ever did or ever will do.

[The Minsky Moment]

I don't think there's any doubt that Obama's presidency was a profound historic failure.

Oh I think there is quite a bit of doubt about that.