#541: Capital Bleed on What People Get Wrong about Elon Musk

Capital Bleed is a pseudonymous account on Twitter who has proven to be an independent thinker. He recently published an article on Substack titled “The Problem with Elon Haters.” Read it here: https://capitalbleed.substack.com/p/the-problem-with-elon-haters In this conversation, we discuss Elon Musk, Tesla, short selling, independent thinking, cognitive dissonance, mental models, investor bias, and social media trends. ======================= Gemini is a regulated cryptocurrency exchange, wallet, and custodian that makes it simple and secure to buy bitcoin, ether, and other cryptocurrencies: https://www.gemini.com/ ======================= Circle is a global financial technology firm that enables businesses of all sizes to harness the power of stablecoins and public blockchains for payments, commerce and financial applications worldwide. Circle is also a principal developer of USD Coin (USDC), the fastest growing, fully reserved and regulated dollar stablecoin in the world. The free Circle Account and suite of platform API services bridge the gap between traditional payments and crypto for trading, DeFi, and NFT marketplaces. Create seamless, user-friendly, mainstream customer experiences with crypto-native infrastructure under the hood with Circle. Learn more at circle.com ======================= Remote makes it easy for companies of all sizes to employ global full-time employees and contractors. We take care of international payroll, benefits, taxes and local compliance, so you can focus on growing your business. Learn more about Remote and their new Remote for Startups program at http://www.remote.com.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Anthony Pompliano?

  What's up everyone, this is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, simply the best podcast out there. Let's kick this thing off. Capital Bleed is a pseudonymous account on Twitter who has proven to be an independent thinker. He recently published an article on Substack titled "The Problem With Elon Haters." You can read it in the description. In this conversation, we discuss Elon Musk, Tesla, short selling, independent thinking, cognitive dissonance, mental models, investor bias, and social media trends. I really enjoyed this conversation with Capital Bleed, and I think you will as well. But before we get into the episode, I want to quickly

• 0:41Anthony Pompliano?

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• 1:25Anthony Pompliano?

  a free account at Gemini using Gemini.com/pomp and earn 20 bucks of Bitcoin. Gemini.com/pomp. Next up is Circle. Circle is a global financial technology firm that enables businesses of all sizes to harness the power of stablecoins and public blockchains for payments, commerce, and financial applications worldwide. Circle is also a principal developer of USD Coin, which is the fastest-growing, regulated, fully-reserved dollar stablecoin in the world, now standing at more than $11 billion of market cap, and it's adding nearly $300 million of net new digital dollars in circulation every week. The free Circle account and suite

• 2:08Anthony Pompliano?

  of platform API services bridges the gap between traditional payments and crypto for trading DeFi and NFT marketplaces. Go check them out at circle.com. They have been growing incredibly fast. Circle is the person and the organization behind USD Coin, so USDC. Flying off the shelves, go to circle.com and you can learn more today. Go check them out. Last but not least is remote.com. In 2021, every business is a global business. But how do you pay your global team and comply with international labor laws? Remote handles payroll, benefits, taxes and compliance to help companies of all sizes pay and manage full-time and contract workers all over the world.

• 2:51Anthony Pompliano?

  No matter where your team lives and works, Remote's global employment solutions keep your team, your finances and your intellectual property secure. Remote never charges percentages or fees, just best-in-class global employment solutions for a low, flat rate. The world's top global companies love Remote. GitLab, the world's largest all-remote organization, trusts Remote to manage their global team, and so should you. Remote is funded by Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital and a host of other top-tier investors. Learn more about Remote and their new Remote for Startups program at remote.com. If you've got a remote or an international team and you're not using remote.com, something's wrong with you. Go check them out, remote.com. All right, let's get this episode with Capital Bleed.

• 3:34Anthony Pompliano?

  I hope that you enjoy this one.

• 3:37Speaker 01

  Anthony Pompliano is a partner at Morgan Creek Digital. All opinions expressed by Pomp or his guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Morgan Creek Digital or Morgan Creek Capital Management. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

• 4:02Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, guys, bang, bang. I've got Capital Bleed here with me. This episode's going to be a little bit different, given that Capital Bleed is a pseudonym both on Twitter and Substack. And so, thank you so much for doing this.

• 4:17Speaker 02

  You're welcome. I'm happy to be here.

• 4:19Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. So, let's just start off with your background. And for those that don't know, Capital Bleed, literally the Twitter account is @CapitalBleed. Your Twitter bio says, "Feb 21 Bear, quote, 'Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other,' end quote. Cash is anti-fragile, watch your tails, there will be blood." That is a very unique Twitter bio. So, maybe talk a little bit about that Twitter bio and then anything else from your background that you want to share.

• 4:49Speaker 02

  Sure. Yeah, I mean, I've been, I've been investing. It's not my prime career. It's kind of a side hobby, but I have a background in engineering. I've been investing now for over 15 years. And some of the things that I'm seeing in the markets right now are just, you know, hysteria and euphoria. And I think my advice to anyone who's investing out there, especially your own capital, is to be very careful to watch for tail risks, uh, because, you know, the, the higher we go, the higher potential downside. Uh, and that's kind of what I'm out looking for, especially this year.

• 5:25Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. And so, uh, what caught my attention was, uh, you wrote this piece on Substack. Uh, Substack is just capitalbleed.substack.com. Uh, and the piece is titled "The Problem With Elon Haters." And, uh, what you essentially walk through, uh, is a very nuanced view, um, of, uh, of Elon Musk and Tesla. And so I just want to read, uh, maybe the, uh, the first part. We can start there. It says, "Let's start with something upfront here. Tesla shares are and have, in my view, been overvalued and in a bubble for some time. However, a common mistake is to transfer one's ugly opinions about something, and bubbles can be ugly, onto everything associated with it.

• 6:05Anthony Pompliano?

  This has left many bitter, resentful folks with clouded judgment about the man behind Tesla and Tesla itself. Any investor who seeks opportunities to learn from the mistakes of others, far less costly than your own mistakes. The story of Tesla Q can teach us lessons far beyond the basics. Don't short a story stock, or don't short, period." That's a very nuanced view just right out of the gate. So where does that come from?

• 6:28Speaker 02

  Yeah. So, I mean, I've been following Elon, his ventures for a very long time, as I'm sure a lot of your listeners have, and, and maybe you yourself. Uh, and, and I'm happy to have him. Be with us. I'm happy to have him alive. Before him, I followed Steve Jobs, who passed close to 10 years ago. And for me, having someone like that contribute to humanity, contribute to society is a net positive. It gives something to look forward to on the positive tail end of the spectrum. And so my, what I've seen in social, on social media especially is there's this large cohort of people, individuals who call themselves Tesla Q, which is the ticker T S L A with a Q, which implies bankruptcy, the fifth

• 7:13Speaker 02

  letter Q on any stock symbol. People who have basically been hitting on Elon for a long time. And while I agree with a lot of the points that Tesla shares are probably very overvalued at where they are, a market cap of about 600 billion or more. I don't think that takes away from Elon's accomplishments with Tesla, with SpaceX, his other ventures. And I think that a lot of people don't go to nuance. They instead just, you know, it's a black or white thing. If you don't like the stock, you've got to hate the person. You got to find ways to trash them. And it just becomes this feedback loop that we see online with many of these groups where it's just a feeding of confirmation bias,

• 7:57Speaker 02

  endless feeding of confirmation bias.

• 7:59Anthony Pompliano?

  One of the things that really stuck out to me as I read the piece was you've got a very masterful kind of command, I think of a lot of mental frameworks and understanding of various types of bias. But the first statistic that I saw that just blew me away because I don't think people realize how significant this is. It's under a section called an investor's worst enemy, yourself, loss of objectivity. And you write, we know what the scoreboard shows. 2020 was a meteoric rise in Tesla's price and Tesla bears were eviscerated. And then you quote or use the source from Reuters that says, in a note to clients, Ihor Dusantsky, managing director of predictive analytics at S3 Partners, said

• 8:43Anthony Pompliano?

  mark to market short losses for Tesla totaled over $40 billion as it was far and away the most unprofitable trade in 2020 and had the largest yearly loss we have seen historically. And so the part that jumps out to me immediately is just, Tesla queue and Tesla bears in general critics tend to be quite loud, tend to be, you know, very well known, but this is a $40 billion loss for the shorts and the most unprofitable trade last year. And so it just seems like even though there's tons of noise and people know about it, the data was overwhelmingly in the other direction.

• 9:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I think we can also, you know, this is an estimate, hedge funds don't have to disclose short positions when they fire file what's called 13F statements. So a lot of these losses are estimated. And if you look at the stock price of Tesla from January 2020 through December, you know, it was about $88 if you talk about a post split basis, about $500, $450. And it ended the year last year at $700. So, you know, we're talking about, if I do my math here, about a ninefold return, a nine X return through a pandemic.

• 10:03Speaker 02

  And the market cap rose up equivalently. So now it's worth about $700 billion. So the company went from being valued, you know, $60 billion to now 60 to $80 billion to now $700 billion. So if you were short along that ride, you would have lost not only your principal, but even multiples of your principal if you held on. And that's why shorting can be so dangerous.

• 10:31Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, what's fascinating to me is as you kind of continue through the piece, you essentially make an argument, you don't explicitly say this, but what I took away from it was the critics would say, oh, this is just fanboys of Tesla. This is a cult. This is kind of the folks who get long and loud. You write, "If you think that the path of anger, bitterness, and resentment will bode well for you as an investor, be my guest." Quote, "Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering." End quote from Yoda. And then you say, "It's interesting..." To note the evolution of bearish Tesla arguments over the years from Tesla will never mass produce an electric vehicle to the China factory will never be complete. It's a pile

• 11:15Anthony Pompliano?

  of dirt to wait until the Bolt, Taycan, I eight come and Tesla won't stand a chance in the face of this competition. In other words, thesis creep galore. It's almost as if you are highlighting, you know, the exact opposite where it's almost become cultish to also be a critic or to be short Tesla.

• 11:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. And while, you know, I will say that euphoria is certainly a component of Tesla's stock performance and hype behind Elon and the company. When you're short something, you cannot afford to be wrong because your losses can be multiples of your principal of your capital. And so you had better be right if you're going short something. And Tesla Q, this group of people, they've had their moments where, for example, Elon's production hell, which was a few years ago, where the company was scaling up Model three production and they were really struggling with this moment. A lot of Tesla bears were celebrating that moment.

• 12:17Speaker 02

  I think Elon also went on the Joe Rogan podcast and smoked a joint and, you know, there were a lot of controversies. Clearly, the man was at one of his lowest moments and these people were willing to kick him at one of his lowest moments. And now here we are, you know, Model three has scaled. They're producing electric vehicles at scale, which is something few would have predicted many years ago. And regardless, a lot of these people have not changed their mind. Regardless of whether you think the the stock price is overvalued, whether Tesla isn't worth $700 billion, I mean, it's certainly not worth zero. And these people were predicting bankruptcy. They were predicting that.

• 13:01Speaker 02

  The China factory was never going to be built and they completed that factory, that huge factory in record time and it's rolling out electric vehicles quite rapidly.

• 13:13Anthony Pompliano?

  What's fascinating about this, right, going back just as a reminder to those who are listening, is you clearly state in the beginning that you think that the Tesla stock price could be overvalued or in a bubble at multiple points, right? So this is not kind of a blind belief or a blind bullishness that you have. I think that it's somewhat of an intellectually honest view. And so we get to the meat of the article, which centers around this piece that was written in Current Affairs by a gentleman Nate Robinson, who's the editor-in-chief of Current Affairs. And it is literally titled, Surely We Can Do Better Than Elon Musk, which seems a little

• 13:53Anthony Pompliano?

  weird, given, you know, some of the things you get into later. But what you talk about is kind of the FinTwit or others who salivated opportunity to attack Musk and his enterprises. And you specifically call out this idea around vehicle crashes. And you say, "These folks will point to individual Tesla vehicle crashes, ignoring the baseline, the prior probability of deaths from car accidents in general, and for example, availability bias." So reporting Tesla crashes generates many clicks from media outlets, many from eager Tesla cures, of course, as opposed to the reporting a local crash of a Ford or Chevy vehicle. And there are obvious behavioral biases and incentives driving many of these trends. And so it seems like you are

• 14:38Anthony Pompliano?

  trying to take a very mathematical or statistical approach to, are things better or worse with Tesla kind of competing? Whereas your counterargument to a lot of the media attention is, it's not rooted in that mathematical or statistical analysis.

• 14:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I, I think the media has been reshaped by social media and the internet, as we all know, uh, and now the thing that everybody's chasing, the dragon that everybody's chasing is clicks, right? So, you know, they're looking for, uh, what's gonna create, what's gonna draw traffic to my platform? And, you know, if I, if I posted something on Twitter and Anthony Pompliano retweets it, you know, that's gonna drive a lot of click clicks to my platform. And so, so for them, you know, let's post about this Tesla vehicle crash. Uh, we don't know if autopilot was engaged. We don't know, um, the exact details of what went on, but, uh, if we post this and get this, uh, out there, social,

• 15:41Speaker 02

  it's gonna be retweeted on social media. A lot of these bears are gonna retweet it, uh, and celebrate. And we've seen this over and over and over again, over the past few years. Any sort of slip up, any sort of, uh, failure from the company is, uh, celebrated by this group of individuals. Um, and, and there's no real statistical context to this, right? I mean, car accidents are still, uh, among the highest killers of people in our country, uh, in the United States and much of the world. Uh, and so, you know, you can't just point to one-off crashes, especially as there are more Tesla vehicles that are being put out there. I mean, the company's production is growing exponentially. So, the more vehicles that are put out there, I mean, statistically, if you're gonna say

• 16:23Speaker 02

  one, there's a car crash in one every 10,000 miles, uh, you know, you're gonna have more crashes because there are more cars out there. Uh, and so, you know, you won't, you won't see Ford vehicles, you won't see Chevys, you won't see Toyotas, uh, when they crash, generate the same kind of hype and buzz. And I think as an investor, as someone who wants to maintain objectivity, you can't let social media distort your view of reality and your view of the world, uh, because, you know, you're gonna be biased. If, if you start seeing more mentions and more retweets of a certain item on your social media. You may become biased by something called the availability bias, which is where, you know, facts that are more readily accessible in your memory are more prominent and it

• 17:08Speaker 02

  it causes a bias inside of you to think, oh, wait, maybe Tesla vehicles are more crash prone, maybe they are more dangerous. And and I think that there's a lot of distortion from social media driven dynamics like these incentives to to retweet and publish these stories that alter people's view of the of reality.

• 17:32Anthony Pompliano?

  It is the the beauty and the curse of social media. Absolutely. You continue in the piece and you have a section called entrepreneurs are not polished like politicians and lawyers, and that's a good thing. And what you do is you start to highlight Nate Robinson's article and use this excerpt. There are two facts that I have sometimes found it difficult to reconcile. The first is that Tesla Inc. makes innovative and genuinely impressive electric vehicles that can hold their own against the fastest performance cars in the world. The second is that the CEO of Tesla Incorporated, celebrated entrepreneurial genius Elon Musk is a liar, huckster, and moron who regularly says things so ignorant that I cannot understand how they can come from a human adult, let alone one treated

• 18:16Anthony Pompliano?

  by his fans as a super genius. And your point kind of after this is, yes, Elon has certainly made flat out wrong statements, notably about COVID incentive caused bias likely contributed in terms of wanting his factory reopened. And here's the thing, that shouldn't really matter because we don't look to Elon for COVID expertise anyways. Robinson seems to be making the mistake of looking to Musk as a scholar or philosopher rather than a doer. Doers are few and far between in our society, and they should not be considered scholars outside of their niche areas. And so maybe talk a little bit about this idea of kind of a doer versus a politician, a lawyer, a scholar, or a philosopher.

• 18:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, you know, we've seen a lot of this in the past year. We've seen a lot of experts who have come out and been flat out wrong about certain topics. And, and I think it's important to note that, I think in our day to day lives, most of us know that just because someone is very intelligent, very talented surgeon, for example, or a scientist in their field, they may not necessarily be an expert in everything. And I think that a lot of folks seem to attack Elon because of his alternative belief system, I'll say, you know, it's a very, in some ways strange, it's, it's unscientific in some ways,

• 19:41Speaker 02

  belief system when it comes to other topics outside of his core competencies, which are physics behind rocketry, battery chemistry, you know, vehicle physics, and all those things that are kind of his core areas. I don't think you can judge him, at least not as harshly as some, some folks, especially Robinson is, just based on some erroneous statements, obviously erroneous statements that he's made. And I think a curious thing happened too, which is, last year, you know, there were some tweets from Elon about taking quote unquote "the red pill," there were some more conservative leaning tweets, and I think that alienated a lot of liberals and it turned Elon into

• 20:26Speaker 02

  kind of a political punching bag for some people. And I, I think that was an interesting dynamic, and, you know, when he voiced views on COVID because he was trying to get his Fremont factory opened, I think a lot of people reacted viscerally to that, and, and it somehow tainted Elon in every respect, and nothing he's done, you know, whether it's getting astronauts to the International Space Station, whether making EVs mass-produced, which is something that I believe a lot of people on the left would really, you know, have wanted to achieve. Despite that, in their eyes, he's completely tainted, which is not a nuance view, and I think if you're going to be objective, if you're going to try to be someone who invests,

• 21:10Speaker 02

  you want to, you want to make sure that you maintain nuance and you don't just paint someone all in one color.

• 21:16Anthony Pompliano?

  At one point, you say, "The lesson here is that geniuses are not straightforward people. The genius originates from behavior and thinking that is highly unconventional and can result in brilliance in certain areas, and yet also prove highly dysfunctional in other domains for that individual." And what you essentially do is you lay out a comparison to Steve Jobs, and specifically around the end of his life, he had cancer. That cancer could have been treatable, but rather than take the medical advice, he basically resorted to diet and some, you know, kind of non-traditional methods of treating that. And there's a strong argument that says if he had simply gotten the medical treatment,

• 22:01Anthony Pompliano?

  his life could have at least been prolonged some degree. And so, maybe explain this a little bit more, this idea that you can actually have brilliance in one area, but be highly dysfunctional in another, right? Almost the complete opposite.

• 22:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I think for a lesson in this, I highly recommend Walt Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs. I mean, it really goes through a lot of the episodes in his life, which were very challenging. But, you know, what you will learn from a book like that is, you know, despite his talents and his contributions to our society, this is a guy who has struggled. He has a belief system that is very unusual, and it's strange and not scientific in a lot of ways, especially outside of the domains for Steve Jobs, which are product development and technology, in this case with health and medicine.

• 22:55Speaker 02

  You know, there are stories about Steve Jobs showing up to meetings barefoot. He was going to Hare Krishna temples when he was in college. He wasn't bathing, and I think he was working at technology firm, I think it was HP, and he would show up not having bathed in several days or even weeks, and eating this fruit diet and really stinking up the place. But some really unusual stuff. And it's probably because of that sort of quirky, eccentric...

• 23:29Speaker 02

  Background and personality that he had that we have the Steve Jobs that we do. So, you know, you can't look at these folks and just point at their flaws, which are, which are gonna be kind of glare. I mean, you know, there's a lot in Steve Jobs' life that he was regretful about and led to a lot of dysfunction, his relationships with people. His first daughter, Lisa, which you can read about in the biography as well. There was an estrangement in the beginning that was eventually reconciled. But, you know, you can't, you can't really look at these folks for, you know, a model in terms of who to be in your personal life.

• 24:11Speaker 02

  But despite that, these people are very talented and they do have huge contributions to society. And I don't think they should be torn down just because of their flaws. They are, after all, human. And so, and so that is, that's kind of the highlight with Steve Jobs. And you see a lot of these same quirks and personality traits in Elon Musk, especially when times are really stressful, right? I mean, Steve Jobs, he became very erratic when he was at Apple initially, after he founded the company in the eighties. They were struggling with the Macintosh. Eventually, he got fired because, you know, it was so strained with the CEO at the time and his relationship. And Elon, you kind of saw this as well. When the company was struggling in 2018, rolling out the Model 3, there, you know, he was, he

• 24:56Speaker 02

  went on Joe Rogan, he smoked a joint, he was, he was clearly stressed out. He's tweeted that he was gonna take the company private without really having a solid offer. A lot of these things were manifesting during this really stressful period for him. But I think despite some of these things, which, sure, they can be not reassuring to an investor, I think you have to look at his contributions, which far outweigh any flaws.

• 25:24Anthony Pompliano?

  I completely agree. Towards the end of this article that you wrote. There is a excerpt from Nate Robinson, which when I read it, I had not read the full piece yet. So I read your kind of critique first, and then I went back and read the original article. Uh, I had to read this three times because I could not believe that this was written. But it says, "It makes me deeply sad that Elon Musk is seen by many as our biggest dreamer, because his dreams are so pitiful, because he is a 12-year-old. They often just involve having the same shit, but bigger and faster, rather than actually doing the hard imaginative work of figuring out how to solve our hardest social problems."

• 26:05Anthony Pompliano?

  And I think you very quickly, uh, explain, you know, this all boils down to a guy who has simultaneously made electric vehicles popular and restarted Western manned spaceflight missions in the past decade. Uh, and Nate Robinson is calling him a 12-year-old. And if we'd gone back to 12, 2012, Nate Robinson probably would have said none of this was possible. But here we are, and it's become a reality. And so is this just, you know, intellectual dishonesty? Is this something that, uh, people genuinely believe? And they think that, uh, you know, it's kind of like all a mirage? I think at one point they, they talk about it like, how, how do you think through this?

• 26:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it's, I want to give people the benefit of the doubt, right? So, you know, I, I think, I think a lot of our, a lot of social media has shortened our attention span. So maybe, maybe he's not sort of appreciating the magnitude of, of what exactly Tesla and SpaceX, which, which recently launched astronauts to the International Space Station, what they've done. I mean, you know, we were, we were sending our astronauts to, uh, Russia to be launched at the Soyuz capsule to go to space because our shuttle program was retired and we didn't have any way of getting human beings into orbit. And so, you know, that's just one accomplishment. And simultaneously, he made electric vehicles popular. So I don't know if it's intellectual dishonesty.

• 27:34Speaker 02

  I don't know if, I think a lot of folks are getting tainted. Like, like I said, it's their incentive. So if you're a liberal and you feel like Elon's views on COVID were antithetical to your beliefs, then, and now you have an incentive to sort of trash him in other respects. If you have a short position against the stock, you know, you have an incentive. It's very hard to convince someone whose paycheck or capital position depends on a certain outcome to convince them of the opposite. And so clearly, you know, calling, calling this pitiful, calling him a 12 year old, I think, I think it's really strange. And, and I think most rational, objective people who are capable of nuance

• 28:17Speaker 02

  would, would totally disagree here and it's astonishing, really.

• 28:21Anthony Pompliano?

  The part to me that I think hammers this point home and, and frankly, you and I probably see the most eye to eye on is when you talk about, um, you know, hey, if there is somebody better, why don't we have them yet? Why is it just this random guy from South Africa? Uh, and why do we often get people like Jobs or Musk instead? And you said, the answer is if we could have done better than Elon, we already would have. Uh, these folks want someone who is as slick and measured as a corporate lawyer to be the next groundbreaking entrepreneur. Unfortunately for them, the world does not produce such individuals for their ideas would merely be conventional by the very nature of such people. You can have your politicians, lawyers and consultants by the dozen,

• 29:04Anthony Pompliano?

  but if that's what you're after, but they'll never rise to the level of a Musk or Jobs in terms of their uniqueness and ingenuity. And so really what it sounds like here is you're basically making the argument, Elon Musk is the only person who could build SpaceX or Tesla into what they are today. And you have to almost accept the flaws with the, uh, the benefits or the upside that he can create.

• 29:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, um, you know, people will say Steve Jobs wasn't an engineer or Elon Musk isn't as knowledgeable as a physicist at, at a university. Um, but you know, these people are visionaries. And really what it takes to make these huge impacts that these guys have is to have a vision and most importantly, be able to execute on that vision. And unfortunately, or, you know,

• 29:55Speaker 02

  Just given the reality of our world, if you want, if you want to push back against naysayers, you have to have a brash personality. You have to be someone who's confident and maybe even overconfident. You know, Steve Jobs had his reality distortion field where, where he would, he would be so optimistic that he would say some of the craziest things. And people say the same about Elon, uh, in terms of getting to Mars or full self-driving on Tesla vehicles. But you have to have that quirk where you're, you're over optimistic, you're brash, uh, and you're not willing to stop, uh, you know, at no a million times in order to get there. And, and, you know, I think a lot of individuals, they're, they're

• 30:39Speaker 02

  looking at people like Elon and, and back in the day, Steve Jobs. And, you know, why can't you be nicer? Why can't you, you know, why, why is he so dysfunctional? And I, I, it's, it's part of the nature of what such a person is. And if we could do better than that, we, we would have, we would have many more groundbreaking entrepreneurs who spoke very well and very polished. Uh, but instead those people are in politics, you know, they go to law school or, or management consulting. So, you know, it's not, it, it doesn't really make sense to, to try to put this standard on someone who, who is so exceptional in, in so many ways.

• 31:14Anthony Pompliano?

  Think it's a great way to look at the world. Uh, before we wrap up, I have two questions for you. One is where do you stand right now on Tesla? Uh, are you long? Are you short? Uh, are you kind of just watching from the sidelines and, and kind of maybe why you are wherever you are? Uh, and then the second thing is, does any of this actually matter? And what I mean by that is, uh, the mainstream narrative, the conversation, uh, social media, uh, Tesla queue conversation, all that. Does it have any effect on actual the prospects or the potential progress of the company? Or is it all just frankly, entertainment for everyone who is Elon Musk and, and working at Tesla?

• 31:54Speaker 02

  Right. So, so I think your first question's interesting. I actually have a very small, like a 1% short position against Tesla. And I was actually long.

• 32:05Speaker 02

  About two years ago, and I sold a year ago because COVID happened and I thought this is gonna be over. It bounced back in in May of last year. I sold out. I I made good money. I could have made a lot more if I held on. And now I have a very minor short position. It's a put. It's it's a long put. I I don't recommend options to people unless you really understand what you're doing because they can be very risky. If I lose, I will lose that 1% of my portfolio. It's an out of the money option. So I I I'm still rooting for Elon, though. I'm rooting for Tesla. You know, if they achieve full self-driving, then I'm gonna be wrong. I'm gonna lose that that investment and I'm I'm happy with that. However, I think there's a lot of frock in our markets, you know, not just Tesla, but crypto.

• 32:51Speaker 02

  You know, all these stocks that are, you know, Hertz, GameStop, etc. So you so you really have to be careful. And I think just given the valuation, I do have that small short position currently. As far as whether or not this matters, I mean, there is a certain point where narrative drives policy and that's a scary thing. I mean, I think that if enough people, you know, you saw this with with GameStop, you you see it with certain trends, but if enough people complain about something on social media, it gets the attention of regulators, it gets the attention of politicians, the SEC, and and it kind of creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. And and, you know, Elon is not gonna be a buttoned-up CEO. We already know that.

• 33:34Speaker 02

  And I I think we're better off, you know, not just not just, you know, in terms of the world, but as Americans of having someone like this who's at the forefront of space and electrical vehicle technology be in our country. I think I think we are much more fortunate of having him. And yes, he's rough around the edges. He may he may do things that are kind of a little bit, you know. Eye opening, but but I think that the danger is that some of these feedback loops, they they lead to this narrative that is impossible to reverse. And and so far Elon has done a great job of dodging it, but that's my greatest concern. I want Elon to thrive.

• 34:12Speaker 02

  I'm rooting for him for SpaceX, for Tesla, especially. And, you know, I think that that's that's my concern.

• 34:21Anthony Pompliano?

  You, I think, already realize this, but if not, how rare it is for somebody to be able to write what you wrote, have the views you hold from a positive light about Elon, his importance to the world, the separation between him, the company, and the stock price. And yet, even though I would put you in the kind of bullish or cheering for Elon and Tesla, you have a short position on. And even though it's a small one, that takes a very special type of person to kind of have that, you know, separation between stock price and long-term value, the individual, etc. Why do you think that you're able to do that, whereas most people aren't?

• 35:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I think it's unfortunate. It's something I've learned the hard way, but independent thinking is is is key to success in investing. You have to be willing to, you know, put put your views aside. You have to be willing to put your biases aside. And you have to look at things really objectively and rationally. I mean, you know, Tesla is worth 700 billion now. What is the remaining upside in this company? You know, what is the potential downside? And that's that's kind of how I weigh things. It's more of a probabilistic scenario. And I think there is a significant probability of success, but I also think there's a significant probability that the valuation sort of comes down a little

• 35:46Speaker 02

  bit from where it is. And I think that the rewards for betting that way outweigh the risks. And again, this is not a vanilla short position. I would never do a vanilla short against Tesla where my downside is limited or my downside is unlimited and my upside is limited. I would never take such a position with Tesla. But I do think you have to think as an investor in a probabilistic sort of way with each opportunity. I mean, what is the probability that it goes up? Well, by how much? And what is the risk? What is the downside? And a lot of folks are not doing this, especially today. And I think people are going to get burned. People need to be careful out there.

• 36:27Speaker 02

  There are a lot of platforms out there that have sort of gamified investing. And I think that if you're investing your hard earned money, just make sure you understand what the risks are, what the downside is especially.

• 36:39Anthony Pompliano?

  I think that is a great place to leave it. For anyone who wants to learn more about the various content that you're putting out, they can go to @capitalbleed, that's B-L-E-E-D on Twitter. So @capitalbleed or Substack @capitalbleed.substack.com. Again, bleed is B-L-E-E-D and we will link to it in the description. Any last words you want to leave people with?

• 37:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, you know, I'll just say, I never would have predicted 20 years ago that the internet, which is a repository of knowledge, would turn people more ignorant. And in a lot of ways, we've seen that it has. You know, the Flat Earth Society is thriving. So if you want to go out there, if you want to go to sleep every night, being a little smarter than when you woke up, make sure that you control and avoid, control your behavior, control your biases, and avoid falling into that trap.

• 37:39Anthony Pompliano?

  That is a fantastic piece of advice. So I really appreciate you coming on today. And we will definitely have to do this again in the future, hopefully, when you put out another piece. So thanks so much.

• 37:51Speaker 02

  I would love to. Thank you for having me.