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It takes a while for the public to react, just like it took a while for Enron and Theranos to be exposed. The market is irrational and the cult of Elon is strong - there’s too much hype, and it clouds people’s judgement.

Also fewer people know these facts than you might expect. I dug through Tesla’s SEC filings to find out, which are hundreds of pages of documents. It took me at least 10 hours of reading. Doing the due dilligence is time-consuming, and it’s really easy to just roll with a speculative opinion, as you’ve seen from many comments in this thread.

Based on my recent experiences seeing friends fundraise in YC, there is a lot of easy money going around, possibly because the low interest rate has pushed investors to look for more profitable investments through Silicon Valley, and money from Asia is pouring in.

Corporate debts is also at an all-time high - there is $6.3T in corporate debt and a cash-to-debt ratio of 12%, a record low. This means that companies are taking an unprecedented amount of risk, so maybe Tesla numbers are relatively less shocking in comparison, but I'm not optimistic it will end well. See junk bond defaults from the 80s.

By the way, Tesla bonds are considered junk bonds. They're officially labeled as B3, or "Highly speculative", and only one rating above "Substantial risks".



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