The first 100 days

[lawpoke87]

Valuation and business performance are not necessarily the same.

I’ll bite. Valuation is largely based on a company’s past, current and projected performance. What else determines stock price in your mind?

Partisanship does strange things to reasonable people. You guys are arguing that a guy whose companies have performed better than those of any human being in the US over the last decade plus is a bad businessman. Amazing logic

 

[TulsaRulzOSUdrools]

I’ll bite. Valuation is largely based on a company’s past, current and projected performance. What else determines stock price in your mind?

Partisanship does strange things to reasonable people. You guys are arguing that a guy whose companies have performed better than those of any human being in the US over the last decade plus is a bad businessman. Amazing logic

He has accomplished a lot. He made electronic cars a big thing. He has taken the cost of space exploration to record low levels. It is pretty special honestly.


Along these lines, People's belief in future performance also does extraordinary things to one's mind. People give too much credence to what that man can pull off, and they often forgive him for it. It is wild.

FDA is not here. Semis are not here. Now everyone thinks xAI is the tits with five people. Tesla is overvalued. They aren't the only EV game in town anymore. Their sales are going down. But Cathie Wood, who somehow gets us on CNBC every day and everyone thinks is brilliant, claims it is going to 9 trillion. It's outrageous.

It is being shown that DOGE is utterly lying about the government's savings from "cancelled" contracts that have already been spent.

The social security dead people that don't exist. I think Elon is lucky he isn't being sued for defamation.

The list is epic. Don't get me started on a pump-and-dump scam artist like Vivek.

 

[lawpoke87]

Not sure why you guys are so focused on Tesla when SpaceX has a $350B valuation

 

[drboobay]

I’ll bite. Valuation is largely based on a company’s past, current and projected performance. What else determines stock price in your mind?

Partisanship does strange things to reasonable people. You guys are arguing that a guy whose companies have performed better than those of any human being in the US over the last decade plus is a bad businessman. Amazing logic

Projected performance is the biggest unknown and historically risky part of valuations.

It is easy to see current earnings and even see shorter term prospects. But irrational exuberance is the big risk in growth stocks. I think Tesla has finally started to get a little dose of reality. But Musk projects a good story.

I will add that I see everything from the lense of my training in the psychology of leadership. Both Trump and Musk are very dangerous guys from that perspective and that completely supersedes politics. It is a completely rational point of view.

 

[astonmartin708]

I’ll bite. Valuation is largely based on a company’s past, current and projected performance. What else determines stock price in your mind?

Partisanship does strange things to reasonable people. You guys are arguing that a guy whose companies have performed better than those of any human being in the US over the last decade plus is a bad businessman. Amazing logic

What do you mean by 'performed'?

Do you mean that his companies have higher market valuations than those of other people in the last decade? I would argue that NVIDIA has been better over the same time period..... still, being in second place is still laudable...but he's also the head of a company that is mostly valued speculatively for future potential rather than for its past performance which has been mediocre in comparison to its competitors.

SpaceX is better, but there's not such a huge industry for that... and instead of firmly seizing on the companies momentous achievements and turning them into a sizeable revenue stream he is making customers (mostly defense / industrial minded customers) think twice about using Starlink because he has weaponized its access in places like Ukraine, and that makes it unreliable to them... and kind of defeats its entire purpose.

 

[lawpoke87]

What do you mean by 'performed'?

Do you mean that his companies have higher market valuations than those of other people in the last decade? I would argue that NVIDIA has been better over the same time period..... still, being in second place is still laudable...but he's also the head of a company that is mostly valued speculatively for future potential rather than for its past performance which has been mediocre in comparison to its competitors.

SpaceX is better, but there's not such a huge industry for that... and instead of firmly seizing on the companies momentous achievements and turning them into a sizeable revenue stream he is making customers (mostly defense / industrial minded customers) think twice about using Starlink because he has weaponized its access in places like Ukraine, and that makes it unreliable to them... and kind of defeats its entire

Musk companies had a valuation in 2010 of approx $1.5B. In 2025 that number had grown to $400B. I’m not aware of any individuals who have seen their net worth grow by almost $400B in the last 15 years. Yet, there are those on this board arguing he is a bad businessman. Like I said…partisanship leads people down strange paths

 

[astonmartin708]

Musk companies had a valuation in 2010 of approx $1.5B. In 2025 that number had grown to $400B. I’m not aware of any individuals who have seen their net worth grow by almost $400B in the last 15 years. Yet, there are those on this board arguing he is a bad businessman. Like I said…partisanship leads people down strange paths

What are you even talking about? Tesla has a market cap of 1 Trillion. In 2010 Nvidia had a market cap of about 4-6B they now have one over 3 Trillion.

I also don’t particularly buy some of Musk’s valuations of his ancillary companies as they often revolve around estimates created by his other companies. Which is basically a shell game.

Musk’s wealth mostly revolves around his Tesla shares the value of which he jeopardizes with his antics and lack of focus on actually making cars. Ironically the massive jump in Tesla’s revenue since 2020 mostly revolved around EV tax credits and the IRA.

 

[drboobay]

Musk companies had a valuation in 2010 of approx $1.5B. In 2025 that number had grown to $400B. I’m not aware of any individuals who have seen their net worth grow by almost $400B in the last 15 years. Yet, there are those on this board arguing he is a bad businessman. Like I said…partisanship leads people down strange paths

I did not say that. My point is that valuation and business performance are not synonymous if you mean stock price. Many growth stocks are valued far beyond their current profitability, for example. Tesla also facing some headwinds now.

 

[aTUfan]

Absolutely. Don't forget Medicaid. Have to cut the support for the most vulnerable to pay for taxcuts for the wealthiest.

tax cut for the wealthy or anybody, just means they get to KEEP more of their OWN money

Medicaid is not a cure, it is only a Bandaid on a bigger problem

 

[watu05]

Musk is a side issue compared to the destructive actions that Trump is using him to pursue. People wanted change, but at some point are going to realize that Musk is a side show to distract from the effort to give a $4T tax break mostly to top 1% by cutting services for the bottom 50%.

 

[watu05]

A modest proposal.

What Congress could do to help all Americans instead of just the top 1%.

1) Pass the Senate's bi-partisan immigration bill that Trump killed in the House just before the election. Immigration reform has been needed for 20 years and repeatedly stalled in the House. Why not move this pre-packaged, bi-partisan bill forward so the President has more tools to deal with the problem?
2) Let the 2016 tax bill lapse. Trying to find $4T in Federal expenditures an is not longer an immediate problem. The top 1% have had 7 or 8 years of a good deal, and letting things return to pre-2016 levels will benefit the national debt and are a small sacrifice for the top 1% to make.

 

[TulsaRulzOSUdrools]

Musk companies had a valuation in 2010 of approx $1.5B. In 2025 that number had grown to $400B. I’m not aware of any individuals who have seen their net worth grow by almost $400B in the last 15 years. Yet, there are those on this board arguing he is a bad businessman. Like I said…partisanship leads people down strange paths

You are correct. There has never been anyone growing wealth like that. No. One. If Spacex went public, it would be worth at least 100 billion more.

He is now going to start facing real competition from Blue Origin (bezo's outfit), and I think some others are lurking, too.

Elon is a strange, strange person. I believe he is going to go the way of Howard Hughes and Henry Ford. Lying about his Diablo II game mastery is just weird. Then, the harem he runs around with and is now knocking up another weirdo conservative social media person. It is different. It is all excused because he is mega-rich. In America, we think being rich gives you the credence to comment and
understand everything. I think

Elon is extremely conspiratorial and full of . Pimping 50 million social security dead. It is ridiculous. It just destroys your cred. They are utterly lying about their savings and are proving that they don't understand the government.

There was a deal posted on Facebook today about the IRS about an IRS person who had just moved his family to Oklahoma to restart his, and there was a menagerie of comments on there. They ranged from abolishing the IRS to screwing that worthless government crap. The funnier ones were the people bitching about the timeliness of IRS responses. It is like, uh, duders, do you think that laying off 5-10k IRS workers is going to make that better? Too funny.

Now the homey is flying in 4,000 Starlink modems and engineers to supplant Verizon all of a sudden at the FAA on a multi-billion dollar contract.

It is weird to me how so many tech people think they can just come in and completely revolutionize industries or act like they haven't been working on this stuff. I know they have been talking about changing FAA tech since Obama or changing government code. Why don't they? It is expensive and time-consuming. I read something the other day about how Larry Ellison dropped a half-billion dollars into trying to do some tech-based farming in Lanai. It has been a total failure. Mostly alluded to that none of these people had any experience in the most basic of things they were trying to mess with agriculture.

Elon showed up and was supposed to kick-being's VCA 25-2B. Yes, elon, it should go faster. But you wanted less money. We don't build too many 747s anymore, and the president's stuff has to be friggin perfect and highly classified. I wondered how he was able even to get in there. I assume that many people need TSCI level clearances for those programs. In the real world, openly smoking pot on Joe Rogan and smashing endless amounts of kettermine would lose your clearances. The boeing ceo was kind and just said Elon is a brilliant guy, and that was that. I am sure there was a huge dog and pony show with him there, wasting people's time.

 

[watu05]

"It is weird to me how so many tech people think they can just come in and completely revolutionize industries or act like they haven't been working on this stuff. I know they have been talking about changing FAA tech since Obama or changing government code."

Agreed. In the PNW area we saw it all the time. Guys who made money at Microsoft and thought they were all Bill Gates or smarter. Enough failed startups and VC's quickly began applying big discounts to that experience.