IF You Were In Elon Musk's Shoes And You Were Going To Do An M&A Deal, WHO Would You Sell To? Apple? Google? A Chinese Mfr.? Someone Else?

Wrong question.

Then what's the right question?

To be more accurate, it's the wrong assumption to start the question. There is no buyer, and there is no seller.

Tesla is at the strongest position it has been during its short existence with more ups than downs. It has all the keys ingredients in place - the gigafactories for batteries and solar products, the Fremont car factory ramping, desirable products, enormous backlogs for its cars, solar panels and solar roofs, Powerwalls for home, Powerpacks for commercial and industrial use, ... Due to its limited resources, ramping up has been challenging in many areas but that is expected and progress has been made by leaps and bounds. Tesla is in no distress.

I understand your question is rhetorical whose purpose is to invoke deep rooted sentiments against and for Tesla. That's fine - it serves the purpose of this site. My opinion is from a perspective of a long term investor in Tesla. Due diligence was done before money was invested and position is constantly reviewed - very little sentiment is involved (except for the excitement with progress made in recent years). Based on the company road map made available to the public, I think Tesla is still at the low end of its exponential growth curve. There is no reason for "an exit" from both an investor perspective as well as the company, especially one with an ambitious and visionary CEO in Elon Musk.

Right now the market value of Tesla is all based on futures and not earnings as there is no data. Cash burn is an issue, as the company is not cash flow positive, unlike some other well know startups. The minute Tesla becomes profitable the game changes and the market will value the company on the basis of data based projects of future earnings, and cash needs. It will be difficult to keep all the products Musk has going or has promised. The recent "restructuring" reflects that reality.

Should read "data based projections".

@EV

That's funny you cite yourself as a long-term investor who's on top of your position and sentiment.

My HF buddies are continuing to add to their short books as the fundamentals are seriously flawed.

That said, I am positive on TSLA at the moment.

Well said, @Vette!

Agent00R wrote: "My HF buddies are continuing to add to their short books" - I hope they have strong stomach and a lot of cash to cover their shorts. Bumpy ride ahead for them.

Yeah, how are those shorts doing now ... ;)

"Sell to" requires two sides of the transaction:
1) Willing seller
2) Willing buyer

As far as we know, nobody is dying to buy Tesla... other that the shareholders faithful, a tiny piece per share.

As of now there's no public knowledge of a buyer. But, something tells the Agents that there's something waiting in the wings...

With the Germans poised to wallop Tesla's premium EV game and Tesla complete failure with the Model 3 to meet its $35K target (and costing nearly double that amount). Tesla is in deep caca.

They need high profits from premium sales (but that isn't happening) and they need big volume to sustain them (and that isn't happening either).

GM should buy Tesla, co-brand it with Cadillac in stand-alone dealers, reimagine it as a Buick-level brand, and send Buick off the China.

Their execution may be third rate, but "premium" is a price point designation most of the time as in a premium paid for buying it.

As long as Musk remains at the company there will be no buyers. His ego and autocratic style is a major obstacle to a sale. If things worsen he will likely be forced to step down, the company would be restructured and sold. As the old saying goes, "there is a buyer for everything' but at what price and conditions?

Since the purpose of this thread was to decide who should buy IF---- - then it is obvious - sell to the Highest bidder - HOWEVER - it depends on how the package is structures - Tesla has a lot of Debt for a company of its size.

I agree. Highest budder with deep pockets to be able to pay off the turd bucket of financial ineptitude and pending lawsuits.

At current valuations any other company would be a fool to purchase Tesla. Of the big automakers VW, GM, Toyota, Daimler and BMW would likely not be interested as they already have knowhow in electrification. Chinese automakers and FCA may be interested but at a realistic valuation. I don't think Apple would be interested...Tim Cook is probably the best operations guy in the world and he knows it doesn't make sense to saddle Apple with the high capital cost/low margin (vs current business)business of building cars. Similarly running an automaking operation would be a huge distraction for Google as well.

Good point. Panasonic takes the batteries and Chinese might be interested in NUMMI to establish a base in USA. With their focus on electric cars for their home market, plus cash availability a Chinese auto maker is the most likely candidate for the auto business, at the right price.

TSLA stock is at $357 per share which values the company at about $60 Billion. They have $10 Billion of debt outstanding. The company has access to capital-- they can issue more stock, more debt, or mortgage some of their paper assets. They are not in a distressed situation. If they find themselves needing more cash soon, which they will, they have plenty of levers to pull to get some at a fairly low cost. The equity and credit markets are wide open for business at this point. Also, they likely would command a premium well above the current market cap to consider an outright sale.

TSLA is tremendously over valued. They have no unique technology and are burning through cash. On top of this there is a lot of competition coming online. It is not as simple as issuing more stock as they have tapped this route already and the additional dilution of share value will scare away investors. There may be credit available, but Tesla's credit rating is at junk status, so very expensive. Cash flow is the bogeyman here. The current rate of cash burn is unsustainable through October. That $60 billion valuation will drop like a rock.

The only companies that can buy a wildly overvalued company like Tesla would be companies who are wildly overvalued themselves. In descending order:
(a) Apple; (b) Amazon; (c) Alphabet/Google; (d) Microsoft; or (e) Facebook.

XON (ExxonMobil) has a very large market cap but it is not considered overvalued so it is not a likely buyer. Getting Exxon stock is as good as getting cash - unlike the others.

Interest rates are heading up, so there will soon be a tech correction, so I am doubtful there will be a buyer.

Perhaps some non-US firm could buy them, but why? Agent00R - please give some hints because we are not seeing this.

One funky thing that could happen is for Tesla to "acquire" UBER - which would allow UBER to become public thru Tesla's public status.

This is known as a reverse-merger and this is a possibility. Tesla would then issue shares to buy Uber. Uber is probably worth about $50 to $70 Billion - so the combined Uber-Tesla would be worth about $120 Billion just after the transaction but would likely plummet after that as Tesla's start realities start dragging down the whole pile.

A reverse-merger (i.e. Tesla "buys" a private company) is the most likely scenario.

"Getting Exxon stock is as good as getting cash" - really ?

Compare XOM stock performance against the "overvalued" companies on your list over the last 5 years:

Stock June 2013 June 2018 Gain/Loss
XOM $90 $ 82 - 10%

AAPL 61 190 + 210%
AMZN 274 1723 + 530%
GOOG 434 1152 + 160%
MSFT 34 101 + 200%
FB 23 196 + 750%

TSLA 100 357 + 257%
S&P500 1627 2782 + 71% (index)

"CLICK" - you took me up on my click-bait trap EVisNow! I was expecting somebody else to respond, however you now have that honor. You made my day!

Oh and stock-tip...GE is as good as cash too!

I would not expect anything more from you mre30. Where else do you "invest" your hard earned money than safe bets such as XON and GE ? they are good as cash as you say. They are proven winners of the past - where you belong.

No one is going to buy Tesla at 60 billion. Or 50 billion. Or 40 billion. Takeover bids are the pie in the sky dreams of Tesla naysayers.

I predict it will be worth 100 billion withing the next three years. At that point Tesla will be the company in a position to buy.

Tesla selling to another car company at this point would be a very bad decision. Their core advantages are their agility and culture, a buyout would kill that near instantly. At a value of $60 billion, there are very few companies period that could afford a hostile takeover. Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, or Samsung are the only relevant companies in the world that might be able to pull it off.

Agility? At what? Nonstop hype and bullsh!t talk?

Culture? Abuse of employees? Callous firing?

Businesses are rarely bought at their "value", but rather for a much lower amount. Tesla could probably be had for 1/10the the $60B. Tata bought Jaguar/Land Rover for $2.3B which was NOT the value of the company.

The only thing Tesla has is a name. There is nothing technologically valuable because all of Tesla's technology is common EV / automotive technology.

Thus, Musk will sell and pocket the cash. He will sell it before Tesla nose dives and let someone else inherit the mess.

Tesla still has the best acceleration performance of any sedan or SUV out right now OR proposed for future release. Their battery tech is also a generation ahead of any other manufacturer, at the lowest cost. They also have the most feature rich driver assist functionality that consumers can purchase and the most advanced car software. They also have vertical integration with energy generation and storage. I don't think any of those 5 tech advantages are going away anytime soon.

It's been 6 years since the Model S was released and only Porsche and Jaguar have realistic competitors ALMOST out. The S and 3 are the best selling cars in their class in the US and consumer satisfaction is higher than any other brand according to Consumer Reports.

I don't think Tesla is going away anytime soon. As for the culture, the comment is more on continuous innovation common in the software world. They have some HR work to do for sure.

Better question: What's TSLA's IP worth because there's nothing else of much value there. And I'm not even sure about the IP. And in five years, with 20/20 hindsight, I'm not sure the current IP would be of any value.
Elon'll end up doing the Trump thing and file for bankruptcy. Everyone but he will get screwed, he least of all.