Vitaliy Katsenelson on Tesla: 80% of Tesla's value is based on Elon Musk's dreams

Tesla has a market capitalization as of this writing of $780 billion.  It made around $14 billion of profit in 2023 and $7 billion in 2024.  A good chunk of profit comes not from selling cars but from regulatory credits.  It sold fewer cars in 2024 than in 2023. Unless we see a significant shift change in battery capacity, speed of charging, and improved quality and availability of charging infrastructure, we have reached peak EV penetration (I wrote about this earlier). 

However, today Tesla is not trading based on car sales but on future dreams of self-driving robo-taxis, robots, semis, and whatever else Elon dreams up.  The car company may be worth $100–180 billion; the rest is what investors are willing to pay for Elon’s dreams.

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China looked like a great opportunity for Tesla, but may turn into a liability if the trade war intensifies. Finally, though at times he seems superhuman, Musk is constrained by the number of hours in the day.  As of today he is running Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter (x.com), xAI (the maker of Grok – a ChatGPT competitor), The Boring Company, Neuralink, and oh, yes, DOGE.  The EV market is getting more, not less, competitive.  Tesla needs an undistracted Musk. 

~ Vitaliy Katsenelson, "Current thoughts on Tesla," The Intellectual Investor, April 23, 2025

Vitaliy Katsenelson on 5G technology

The transition from 4th-generation (4G) wireless to 5th-generation (5G) is about a lot more than just the ability to download Netflix movies in seconds rather than minutes.  5G is a transformational technology that in coming years may turn our global society into either a utopian or a dystopian sci-fi movie.  5G uses much wider wireless spectrum, drains a fraction of the battery power, and has lower latency.  The combination of these factors will result in a hundred- if not thousand-fold increase in internet-connected devices.  Streetlights, trash cans, cars, cameras… cows; all will be connected through the wireless grid. 

Here is one example from 2020 that popped up as I was writing this. Amazon has announced that you’ll be able to pay for goods at its Amazon Go stores by scanning your hand. In other words, you’ll no longer need your smartphone.  Your personal data will change its main residence from the personal comfort zone of your smartphone to the cloud. 

We are a few years away from it, but the amount of data created by the 5G network will increase exponentially.  It will transform the internet of smartphones to the internet of things, where smartphones are just a small fraction of those things.  And the potential for abuse of this power to monitor and control people will grow exponentially, too.

~ Vitaliy Katsenelson, "U.S. and China: In the Foothills of Cold War," ContrarianEdge, October 29, 2020

Vitaliy Katsenelson on the forced sale of TikTok

Then there is the TikTok fiasco, which is still unravelling. The US government fears TikTok’s unchecked presence in the US, the data it may collect about US consumers, and what it will do with it. This is understandable. However, the way the US has dealt with the issue will be perceived as unconscionable by both China and, more importantly, the rest of the world. 

The US government gave an ultimatum to TikTok get out of the US or be sold to a US-based company. But then President Trump demanded that whoever buys TikTok must pay the US government “key money” (a commission). In other words, since this “key money” will lower TikTok’s purchase price, TikTok is basically paying the US government for… I’m not sure what. This is extortion. Mobsters do this, not the US government. 

Actually, other countries, including China, do this. Apparently, it is done in commercial real estate, as well. But we are the shining beacon of democracy; we are the United States of America. We should be doing the opposite; we should make sure that this sale process is fair and above board.

~ Vitaliy Katsenelson, "U.S. and China: In the Foothills of Cold War," ContrarianEdge, October 29, 2020

Robert Spalding on the U.S.-China cold war

What oil is for Saudi Arabia, data is to China. 

~ Robert Spalding, retired US Air Force brigadier general, served as US Defense Attaché to China and is the author of Stealth War: How China Took Over While America’s Elite Slept

(As quoted by Vitaliy Katsenelson, "U.S. and China: In the Foothills of Cold War," ContrarianEdge, October 29, 2020)

Vitaliy Katsenelson on U.S. complacency being the world's reserve currency

I think that [being] the world's reserve currency is not a God-given right.  It's something that you have to continue to deserve.  And we were behaving as if it is a God-given right.

~ Vitaliy Katsenelson, "Kodak Crashes 85% from Recent Peak," Stansberry Investor Hour, 22:38 mark, August 13, 2020