Investor's Corner
How Elon Musk’s biography led to a Tesla investor retiring at 43
In 2017, a Canadian accountant named Spencer was looking for something to watch on YouTube after cutting his cable, until he stumbled upon interviews with Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
Four years later, at the age of 43, he is retiring from his job because his investment in Tesla stock has solidified his finances for the future.
In what started as a routine evening on the couch, Spencer probably never could have imagined that stumbling across interviews on the world’s largest library of videos would lead to an exceptionally early retirement. Elon Musk’s mission always struck a chord with him, but that night, everything shifted.
“I have always been concerned with climate change,” Spencer said. “That night, I started watching YouTube and stumbled across Elon’s interviews. Then, I read the Ashlee Vance biography on Elon, and I watched other great Tesla related content creators. The rest is history.”
‘The Rest is History.”
Spencer is just one of many people who poured money into a small, relatively unknown electric car company called Tesla in 2017. It was a no-brainer. After doing his own personal research, he knew that it was the answer he had been looking for in terms of financial stability. “I began slowly building my position. The more I learned, the more I realized that Tesla was an extraordinary company and opportunity from an investment standpoint. It was something that could significantly change my life over the long term.”
And it has.
This morning I submitted my retirement notice to employer .. thx to @elonmusk and $TSLA I’m retiring at age 43 ..
— ?Tesla Army? (@TeslaArmy) January 4, 2021
At just 43 years old, Spencer decided to e-mail his colleagues who work alongside him at a Victoria, British Columbia accounting firm, tendering his resignation due to his gains from his Tesla holdings. It wasn’t a surprise to Spencer’s co-workers that he had made a substantial amount of money because of his Tesla investments. It was a surprise to see a 43-year old finishing up his professional career at such a young age; none of the fellow accountants or executives expected him to leave.
“Most of the coworkers close to me knew what was happening with my situation,” he told Teslarati. “However, others were caught off guard when I informed them I’m going to retire at the end of January 2021 by e-mail. I’ve provided context on how and why I’m retiring to my bosses over several phone calls.”
Spencer’s e-mail to his colleagues detailed the tumultuous year of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But while many around the world lost their jobs or were forced to retreat and call their place of residence their office, Spencer was thriving financially due to his investments. He was relatively unphased even though he never experienced a layoff because most mornings, his portfolio was going up in value.
“2020 was an extraordinary year thanks to C19, but it was also an extraordinary year for me financially from an investing standpoint to the point where I have spent that last month or so considering retirement. The end result is my plan is to retire at the end of this month – January 2021,” he wrote to co-workers.
Tesla’s Stock Surge
Tesla stock surged over 700% in 2020. At the beginning of the year, shares were valued at a shade over $86. On New Year’s Eve, Tesla closed at $705.21.
Some investors got in earlier than others. While some took advantage of the company’s $17 initial public offering in June 2010, some didn’t get in until a few years later when Tesla launched the Model 3. Regardless, if you got in before January 2020 and held on, you’re probably pretty happy with your earnings. Where it goes from here, well, that lies in the eye of the beholder.
Credit: Yahoo
Tesla is still among the most shorted companies on Wall Street, despite the surge in price in 2020, casting $38 billion in losses to those who have bet against it. Some bears have taken such a big hit that they have admitted defeat and lowered, or even sworn off, their short positions on the stock altogether. One of them is Kynikos Associates founder Jim Chanos, who stated that he had trimmed his short against the stock.
“It’s been painful, clearly, Chanos said in a recent interview with Bloomberg. “I’d say, ‘job well done so far,” Chanos said when confronted with the question on what he’d tell CEO Elon Musk.
Moving forward, Spencer plans to consider contract work with accounting firms, but most of his focus will lie on bettering himself physically and financially.
“After my retirement, my plan is to focus on my mental and physical health, as well as developing a strategy for managing my investment portfolio to generate income. Both are near-term areas of focus. Long-term, I’m not sure what the plan is yet,” he said. His days will probably be filled with joyrides in the Model 3 he purchased in 2018.
When I asked Spencer what he would advise anyone reading this article to do about TSLA stock, his answer was simple.
“I’m not a financial advisor, and everyone’s circumstances are different. But, my view is TSLA stock will likely be the most profitable stock investment of all-time by a long shot when it’s held long-term.”
Spencer operates the @TeslaArmy Twitter feed. Be sure to give him a follow!
Investor's Corner
Tesla gets its latest short from Michael Burry: ‘Happy it jumped back to this level’
Tesla short seller Michael Burry, the subject of the film “The Big Short,” where he was portrayed by Steve Carell, has revealed he has opened a new bet against the stock.
In a new update to his Substack newsletter in a post titled “Trading Post June 30, 2026,” Burry revealed a new set of bets against Tesla, Caterpillar, NVIDIA, Applied Materials Inc., and the iShares Semiconductor ETF.
In regard to Tesla, Burry wrote:
“And finally I shorted Tesla at 416.22. Happy it jumped back to this level.”
This means Burry likely opened his new short position after the company’s recent rally on Wall Street, which saw Tesla shares sink in mid-May, only to recover to well over the $400 mark. Currently, shares trade at around $427.
The company saw a big Tuesday as shares climbed considerably, over 10 percent. The size of the Tesla short was not provided, nor did Burry give any information on the position’s structure, the number of shares, dollar value, or whether options were used in the short.
The Tesla and SpaceX merger everyone is talking about is quietly building
Over the years, Burry has been one of the more vocal critics of Tesla, calling its share price “media inflated,” and saying it was “ridiculously overvalued” as recently as December.
The company has largely transitioned away from being known as an automotive company and instead is much more widely regarded as an AI play, mostly due to its Full Self-Driving efforts, Optimus robot development, and data collection related to both.
This has not pulled those skeptics away from being vocal about their distaste for how Tesla is valued, but there’s no denying that the company is a global force in many things, including sustainable energy, automotive, and AI.
Wedbush Securities is initiating stock coverage on SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX), marking the first comments on the company since it went public several weeks ago. Wedbush and its analyst handling coverage, Dan Ives, are widely bullish on fellow Musk company Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA).
Ives wrote his first note initiating coverage of SpaceX shares on Wednesday with a $190 price target and an ‘Outperform’ rating. The firm believes the company is well positioned off of its IPO because of its wide array of projects, including AI compute power and infrastructure, connectivity projects, and launches.
“We view SpaceX as one of the most differentiated assets within the tech market with a strong footprint across its three core markets, with Starlink driving success with connectivity,” Ives wrote, “Starship launches leading to a demand flywheel and increasing deal flow for its Colossus clusters.”
Elon Musk called it Epic: The full story of SpaceX’s Starship Flight 12
Wedbush leans heavily on Starlink, which they say is the “profitability driver given the strength of its recurring revenue base of ~12 million subscribers as of June 5th.” Ives believes Starlink is still in the “early innings” of penetrating the global telecommunications and broadband market, as it only holds less than a 1 percent share. However, this number is sure to increase over time.
It also highlights the importance of Starship, which it says is an “essential layer” of SpaceX’s overall success. SpaceX developing and displaying the ability to reuse rockets is a major cost and reliability advantage “as it reduces the necessary hardware launch costs while generating a feedback loop for future flights to improve their launch flight rate without accelerating capex spend.”
Finally, SpaceX’s recent AI/Compute projects are also very elementary, Ives writes. It is worth mentioning Wedbush said its $190 price target is derived from a valuation forecast that sees the company yielding roughly $2.48 trillion of implied enterprise value.
There are also some factors that Wedbush did not take into account with its initial coverage. The firm wrote in the note:
“We note that there is optional value coming from Starship’s accelerating scale towards sub-$200/kg unit economics, orbital data centers, and enterprise AI monetization as these factors could drive meaningful upside but these face major hurdles, so we do not take that into account with our valuation.”
SpaceX shares are down just over 2 percent today, trading at around $167 at the time of publication.
For years, there have been images and videos across social media platforms that have reminded me of when I was a 15-year-old kid teased by “Xbox 720” videos on YouTube. These videos are of the supposed “Tesla Phone” that Elon Musk was secretly developing in between leading Tesla with its electric cars and SpaceX with its reusable rockets.
Would you buy a Tesla phone ? pic.twitter.com/aaTwvvIJit
— Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV) October 6, 2023
Although Musk has put those rumors to bed several times, it was never completely out of the realm that he could get involved in cell phones in some capacity. Think outside the box and more macro-level, though. Instead of reinventing the computer, Musk reinvented connectivity by developing Starlink with SpaceX.
It could be something similar, TD Cowen analyst Gregory Williams said in a note last week, where he hinted SpaceX could be gathering some steam to acquire T-Mobile.
Williams said it would be the “clear choice” for SpaceX if it decided to go through with a network acquisition. He also suggested AT&T.
The move would be possible through selling more of its own stock, which would help SpaceX raise the money to purchase T-Mobile, which would cost roughly $300 billion. It could be one of the moves SpaceX makes post-IPO in terms of an acquisition: it already acquired Cursor AI for $60 billion.
Other analysts, like Dan Ives of Wedbush, believe SpaceX and Tesla will eventually merge into one anyway, and that conglomeration could come as soon as this year, some have said.
The implications of SpaceX purchasing T-Mobile are massive. A combined entity would create a truly ubiquitous network: T-Mobile’s terrestrial 5G towers and Starlink’s growing constellation of Direct-to-Cell satellites. This would essentially eliminate dead zones across the U.S. and potentially globally.
SpaceX would instantly become a full-scale facilities-based carrier with satellite differentiation; a huge advantage. This would pressure AT&T and Verizon heavily.
There are also concerns like a potential reduction in long-term competition, and of course, a deal of that size would face intense scrutiny from government agencies.
The strategic fit is compelling due to the existing Starlink–T-Mobile partnership and complementary technologies (space + terrestrial). It could create a dominant integrated communications player. However, the regulatory, financial, and execution hurdles are enormous — this remains highly speculative with no indication SpaceX is actively pursuing it right now.
Tesla Optimus project fires up as Musk sees production line progress
Tesla gets its latest short from Michael Burry: ‘Happy it jumped back to this level’
