back to article Elon Musk says Tesla's stock price is too high ... welp, NOT ANY MORE

Elon Musk's mouth has cost him a pretty penny after he told the press that he thinks his electric car company is a tad overvalued at the moment. "I think our stock price is kind of high right now," Musk told CNBC. "If you care about the long term, Tesla, I think the stock is a good price. If you look at the short term, it is …

  1. ecofeco Silver badge

    Must be nice to not pay taxes

    The only reasonable offset to this corporate welfare is if the employees are well paid.

    Because they're the ones who are going to be making up for the $1.5 shortfall in the state's budget.

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
      Childcatcher

      Re: Must be nice to not pay taxes

      Ah good, so it's not just me then.

      "Hi, I'm Mr Rich B'stard and I'm going to build a factory to make widgets to make me an even richer bastard. Trouble is, all my money is invested off-shore and I'd really like it if some state or country would build it for me so a local politician can win an election on the back of my wealth job creation scheme. Ok, let's start the bidding now, do a hear a billion?"

      1. ian 22
        Windows

        Re: Must be nice to not pay taxes

        Please Mister Musk, may I have another? (Tugs forelock, assumes subservient pose).

  2. Stu J

    Hmmm

    Tell people your stock is overvalued.

    Get them to sell it to you* at a knock-down price.

    Post strong results so stock price climbs again.

    Repeat.

    Profit.

    *or your friends, or some other holding company

    1. goldcd

      Or anybody you're about to hand over stock options to

      when say you're about to risk a fortune on an incredibly risky venture - and you want to make sure they don't bail at the first little bump.

      He's many things - but I don't recall him every being described as 'stupid'

      1. Arctic fox
        Flame

        @ goldcd Re: Or anybody you're about to hand over stock options to

        Indeed, shock horror, risk-venture CEO is honest with his investors. If their response was to shit themselves and bail out that says all we need to know about the modern stock-market. In addition to the amazing advantages of the "Anglo-American" model of modern capitalism.

        1. Eddy Ito

          Re: @ goldcd Or anybody you're about to hand over stock options to

          It's a risky comment for Musk to make. I would think the SEC should be paying more attention to things like this since it could easily be seen as stock price manipulation.

  3. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    Shurely shome mishtake - ed

    "net zero energy" facility, / discounted energy supplies from Nevada for the next eight years. ????

    You mean he will get to sell the unreliable occasional solar electricity for 4-5x the regular price as a feed-in tariff subsidized by the same regular customers who will be paying for the free 24x7 reliable supply he is getting from the state?

    1. Stephen Hurd

      Re: Shurely shome mishtake - ed

      > sell the unreliable occasional solar electricity

      I don't think you've visited Nevada.

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: Shurely shome mishtake - ed

        I have worked there, most of it is under a lot of snow every winter.

        High areas in the middle of continents tend to have extremes of hot dry summers and cold winters.

        1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

          Re: Shurely shome mishtake - ed

          I live in Canada, eh? Solar still works just fine here during the winter. Tilt your panels and sand/snow/leaves/what-have-you fall off. Wind helps.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Shurely shome mishtake - ed

      With the variability of renewable generation, in order to use renewables 24x7 they probably need a shit load of batteries.

  4. Grumpy Fellow
    WTF?

    Blue Chip - Seriously?

    My definition of blue chip is a large cap company that has survived several long business cycles and which pays dividends. I still see Tesla as a start-up company. That's not to say that you won't make money by buying the stock, but I would question the judgement of any financial analyst that described it as Blue Chip at this point. In my opinion it is still far from a sure thing that the company's profits will grow to meet their valuation in the stock market. Let me tell you about my Nortel "investment" some years back! <groan>

  5. Joe Cooper

    Sorta not really

    His net worth is reduced but he hasn't actually lost any money unless he _sells_ the stock right now at the suddenly and slightly reduced price. Which would be pretty daft, hypothetically. And the _intention_ of telling people that it's slightly overpriced is for them to sell it. When it's convenient to do so, that is, and not some massive horrible bubble burst. In short; all perfectly fine and frankly more fine than anyone else on the stock market.

  6. Tom Reg

    Tesla - a government funded subsidy machine

    In the US, each Tesla is subsidized $50,000, in Norway its $130,000 subsidy!

    I guess the only way he can pull this off is if the governments of the world don't wake up and pull out the rug, while in the meantime his infrastructure plans execute perfectly.

    http://insideevs.com/tax-exemptions-in-norway-cut-tesla-model-s-price-in-half/

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickmichaels/2013/05/27/if-tesla-would-stop-selling-cars-wed-all-save-some-money/

    1. Alan Brown Silver badge

      Re: Tesla - a government funded subsidy machine

      "In the US, each Tesla is subsidized $50,000, in Norway its $130,000 subsidy!"

      Governments are subsidising electric cars to encourage people to use them. Once the market hits criticality the subsidies will stop.

      Shell we discuss the hidden subsidies for road transport in most countries? (HGVs cost their operators a lot less to run than the damage they cause to roads). The electric car subsidy is paid once. HGV subsidies are ongoing.

      1. Eddy Ito

        Re: Tesla - a government funded subsidy machine

        In the meantime governments from individual states to the fed are scrambling to cover the costs of road maintenance as fuel tax revenues drop from electric, hybrid and simply higher efficiency automobiles. That's the problem with subsidies, it doesn't become obvious until it's obviously not working. It doesn't matter if it's roads, butter or sugar, subsidies are the wrong answer to any problem.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Tesla - a government funded subsidy machine

          That's not a subsidy problem. That's a pricing problem. If you try to price road use using a measure that's only tenuously linked to road use you're just asking for trouble. Fuel taxes are used because they're easy, not because they're fair or accurate. To overcome this supposedly big problem some places have added extra fees for PEVs. Fixed fees of course, because, you know, people have to pay their fair share. (Never mind that they wouldn't dare consider having everybody pay a fixed fee.)

  7. Alan Brown Silver badge

    share pricing

    Tesla shares in the market are worth $17 each to Musk - that's what he got for the ones he sold off. Any money changing hands for them after that point doesn't come back to Tesla, so as far as he's concerned they _are_ vastly overpriced.

    Shares are worth precisely zero to their holders sold. Until that point they're a piece of paper with a supposed value, but with no backing other than the confidence of the market. Any other point of view is a gambler's wishful thinking.

    1. Hairy Spod

      Re: share pricing

      Surely that would only be true if Musk no longer held any shares, and if he no longer held any shares its doubtful that Musk would be in charge.

      I understand that he gets nothing from the shares he already sold, but the ones he kept have gone up in value nicely and more than offset what he originally sold.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    He probably wanted to buy some more stock himself. Talk it down a bit so he can get it on-the-cheap.

  9. Robert Fahey

    This was the THIRD such warning from Musk, and the other two had negligible impact on TSLA: http://teslamondo.com/2014/09/05/ceo-issues-third-stock-warning/

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