Read this article at Seeking Alpha and tell me how long you think Tesla can keep running losses at this level. At this point they’re burning through more than $1 billion a quarter.
Read this article at Seeking Alpha and tell me how long you think Tesla can keep running losses at this level. At this point they’re burning through more than $1 billion a quarter.
Amazon.com loses money too, I’ve heard. What are its prospects?
Somewhat more seriously, I think Musk’s finances look bothersome because he’s keeping as much of his companies’ worth as he can to himself. If he got in real trouble and suddenly needed the odd 5 or 10 billion bucks to deal with some issue at Tesla or SpaceX or wherever, he could probably arrange an IPO and gather in all he needed within a quarter. Alternately, he could fall back on Google or some Silicone Valley financiers, or maybe arrange an advance payment from NASA for some future launch.
He’s got options, I’m suggesting.
Actually, Amazon is running a small net profit these days based almost entirely on web services. The retail operation still runs at a loss.
But Amazon never ran at losses like those. The difference is that Tesla is capital intensive in a way that Amazon never was. Breaking into the auto industry is expensive.