evilweasel posted:

I think people are underestimating the degree to which this contagion could spread. Remember: Elon is the world's richest person because he has a massive stake in Tesla. Tesla stock has taken a beating, but it trades at about 60 times earnings today. For reference, the S&P trades about 20.

That basically means people are paying three times as much for each dollar of current earnings from Tesla as they pay on average. That means, in essence, Tesla's stock price currently has a completely massive "Elon Musk" premium: fanboys believe that tesla is going to earn scads more money in the future because of the brilliance of Elon Musk. Tesla also really sells its cars (and earns its current earnings) based on a similar effect - a lot of people buying it because Autopilot is going to "work" someday.

Elon is very very good at creating a self-image of himself as a techno visionary who will do great things in the future even if that future keeps being a little farther in the future than predicted, every time. Elon is currently taking a sledgehammer to that; and the more he does that, the more Tesla's share price will crumble and the less people are going to trust the cars in the first place enough to buy them.