Tesla's "Reckless" Management Will Lead to Its Demise, Says Short-Seller
*By Michael Teich*
The entire market is in a bubble, according to Mark Spiegel, a short-seller at investment firm Stanphylーand Tesla may be the biggest one of all.
"It's a terrible business," he said in an interview on Cheddar Tuesday. "The financials are terrible and getting worse."
Tesla stock closed below $300 a share on Tuesday, its lowest level since early June. Shares are down 20 percent from their highs of the year. Spiegel thinks it's only a matter of time before the stock really crashes.
There's plenty to rattle investors. The company has burned through $8 billion in cash over the last four years and has more than $10 billion in debt. On Sunday, a report emerged that the company was asking for refunds from suppliers to help it turn a profit, though Tesla said it was only negotiating contracts on projects that were still active. And late Monday, the company said a top sales executive was leaving the company.
Spiegel said the recent string of executive departures is a sign of rising fatigue among insiders. He also said Elon Musk is partially to blame, calling his leadership reckless and describing the CEO as an "incredibly deceptive guy."
"He thinks you have to be as smart as he is to see through his BS. When in fact you don't have to be, you can just fact check."
One potentially problematic area, for SpiegelーTesla's self-driving cars, which he says aren't nearly as safe as CEO Elon Musk would like.
"Their autonomous driving tech is way behind," he added. "What they put on the road ... does more than what other people are willing to put on the road"
Tesla will report its second quarter earnings on August 1.
For full interview, [click here] (https://cms.cheddar.com/videos/VmlkZW8tMjA5NzM=).
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
