Forget About Tesla Going Private, BMW Is The One You Are Looking For

Elon Musk is an deceitful liar and crook.

Musk is simply a salesman with Big Ideas - not all of which have worked and not all of which will work in the future. Typically a car salesman will come up with a way to get you to buy - and will say almost anything to do it so they can make their commission. The problem is - car salesmen are rarely businessmen - and like Boris Trump - have to feed their EGO to stay on top in their minds. THere are such people in most every large business.

I wonder if BMW went private would it affect the prices of its automobiles. I wonder how it would affect their R&D in the short term. I also wonder how radical the designs could get if they don't have to worry about the shareholders. I am a long time Audi fan but would love to see something exciting coming out of Germany. I haven't seen anything from the big three in a while. The R8, A5/S5/RS5, and A7/S7,RS7 were like dreams when they came out. The 4 series, 6 series and i8 for BMW and the SL and GT from Benz where the same. Not saying that the other vehicles from the Big 3 don't look good or not worth buying (I own some others) but those received a wow upon seeing and/or driving.

BMW is sputtering and precarious. It would not surprise me to see Toyota buy them out.

BMW is plateauing, it will take a lot for them to claw back market share at this point.

BMW has a lot more going for it should it wish to go private...1) cash on hand, 2) a long history of profitability, 3) strong branding, 4) a stable large shareholder base that would remain as shareholders (Quandt family, union, local government), 5) strong, supportive labor union and labor force, 6) excellent credit relations with banks built up over many years, 7) global distribution, 8) in place infrastructure worldwide, 9) German government support of industry, etc etc. See no reason for it to go private now but certainly a much better candidate than Tesla.

Musk is very focused on the negatives of being public-- the regulatory scrutiny, the market volatility, the many obligations of transparency, the opinions and criticisms of the market, the constant anxiety and inquiry of investors.

Hopefully he is also considering the positives of being public-- the access to deep, deep pools of capital, the liquidity of issuing new stock into the market versus finding incremental money from private investors, the beta of the TSLA stock to other technology multiples, which has rewarded him with a huge valuation, and the relative ease of dealing with fragmented ownership as opposed to concentrated activist ownership.

I think privatization for Musk will be far worse than he thinks. If he finds the critiques of stock analysts annoying, and passive money managers like T Rowe Price and Fidelity, it will be far worse when the criticisms are coming from his majority owners. Right now as CEO and Chairman of the Board, Elon works with the decentralized pool of individual investors that comprise the stock market (largest owner is T Rowe Price with 9.17% behind Elon himself), and he has the ability to implement his strategies more ore less unchecked.