Ben Kallo SLAMS Tesla Bears (Video) — #TeslaPrivate #Pravduh
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And Jim Cramer tags supplements Kallo’s great comments in a separate clip by saying, “If you’re shorting Tesla, you’re shorting the honey badger.”
Major media outlets have let me down in the past. Their coverage of global warming in minuscule, horrid, and an outright disservice to the human species. Their coverage of the last US presidential race was absurd and completely derelict in its level of counterproductive noise. But I think their coverage of Tesla this year, and especially since CEO & Chairman Elon Musk tweeted about a desire to take Tesla private, has disappointed me more than any other media coverage in my lifetime.
They bring on analysts and experts with clear biases and conflicts of interest yet don’t even mention them. They hype fear-mongering and slander that has no basis or close to no basis in reality. They misrepresent Tesla’s history, financial position today, and clear guidance. They go and do exactly the things that have pushed Musk toward taking Tesla private and then act flabbergasted and dumbfounded by the idea.
Sure, there are some cons to going private. Ben Kallo, a senior research analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co. who has been covering Tesla [TSLA] for 7 years, briefly notes one or two in the video below. Much more importantly, though, he calls bullshit on the nonsensical Tesla trash talking bears have been putting out there, and he does an absolutely superb job of that. You have to just watch the video, and share it with any friends buying into the widespread bear BS ( …. or I guess we could just call it “bear shit”). However, for those of you eager for some more text, I’ll highlight a few of my favorite lines before jumping to another video.
https://youtu.be/_HTg6aO7RBc
“You’ve got that guy on there — now he’s calling it a Ponzi scheme — after he just went through some free cash flow analysis. He doesn’t even know what he’s talking about.”
“The bears are gripping at the last thing they can, and that’s Elon Musk going to jail. And — it’s ridiculous.”
“I think that an outcome could be that the board comes back and says, ‘No, you know, $420’s too low. $500 is probably a better number.’ And people aren’t thinking about that right now. And if we back up before all of these texts, the leak was the Saudi sovereign wealth fund wanted to invest in Tesla and they wouldn’t let them. And so, we’re focusing on all the wrong things right now.”
“I think the real thing is, there are pockets of money that want to invest in Tesla, whether it’s private or public.”
“It hasn’t always come on time, but it’s always beat expectations. People thought they couldn’t sell 20,000 Model S’s and they sell 50,000 right now. There’s a 9 month hiccup in the Model 3, but in the grander scheme of things, give me a break.” — haha, epic. 😀
The host then asked the so frequently repeated and increasingly stupid question of whether Tesla will have to raise money before the year is out. Ben Kallo: “No. They could have raised capital with the Saudis! That’s what the news story that’s most important is.”
That may have been the best Tesla commentary I’ve seen on a major media network this year. Though, CNBC’s Jim Cramer had some good lines this week as well. You can watch that here, but here were a few of my favorite lines in text as well:
“When you think about how much money [the Saudis] could raise, and how they own Aramco, and how Aramco has said over and over again to their own advisors […], we have to have a hedge against oil, everything makes sense.”
“But remember, this all started with him getting funding, that he could’ve had for his company, that instead he told them to go buy in the open market. … What really has mystified a lot of people is, why didn’t he need the money for his own company? If he really was in trouble, why not — the Saudis would be happy — look, there’s $2 billion you can buy on the open market and there’s $2 billion you can buy from the company, and why didn’t he say, ‘Listen, you’ve got to buy it from us, I need the $2 billion? In which case the stock would be at $420, because then the bears would have no case.'”
“If you want to short [Tesla], you’re shorting the honey badger. Honey badger don’t care!”
Now, Cramer is a bit of a crazy, off-the-wall commenter, in my opinion, but he makes some good points as well (especially the ones I highlighted).
It’s clear when you watch much of the major media coverage of this that they have a few scare-mongering talking points that they love, certain clueless and/or biases commenters are happy to jump on and insinuate that Musk is going to jail … for doing exactly what he’s supposed to be doing and informing all shareholders and stakeholders at once instead of just some wealthy insiders. Hopefully more in the press will pick up on the simple, straightforward, completely sensible explanations Kallo and Cramer offered, but I’m not holding my breath.
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