Muddy Waters comes clean on Tesla
Much has been written about Carson Block, the volatile and sometimes venomous short-seller who runs Muddy Waters Capital. Now, Block is penning some rare words of his own.
Block just sent clients his first shareholder letter since starting a hedge fund in 2015. In the letter, obtained by DealBook from a source familiar with the fund, Block, a longtime critic of Elon Musk, Tesla’s C.E.O., said that his firm’s multiyear bet against the electric carmaker had been sent to “heaven,” with no plans to revive it.
Block said Musk’s “narcissism” drew his disdain and stoked the belief that Tesla’s business would crater. But Block added that he underestimated Musk’s ability to raise capital in huge amounts, reinvent himself and captivate shareholders.
“The market cap, the luster, the élan of Elon, is still there,” Block wrote, in explaining why his bets against Tesla have gone away.
“Tesla shorts have focused on Tesla’s lack of scale to compete in EVs with GM, Ford, VW, etc.,” Block wrote. “They are correct in that lack of scale would have been the death of Tesla. But they were looking at the wrong scale. Tesla is here not because it has scale in terms of manufacturing base or unit sales. It has scale because of its capital base,” he said of Tesla’s $700 billion market cap. He added:
One could look at Tesla’s market cap and think it’s fragile — that reality will shatter it. However, Tesla should be able to raise many billions before its cap becomes sub-scale — and keep in mind that Tesla equity raises tend to push the stock higher. (Those “dumb money” investors actually knew that capital base scale is what mattered all along.)