Submitted by Taps Coogan on the 15th of December 2017 to The Sounding Line.

Legendary short seller Jim Chanos, the man who predicted the implosion of Enron, had this to say about Tesla in a recent interview with CNBC:

“Mr. Musk and Tesla have a broad broad interpretation of the truth. There have been all kinds of announcements that this company has made, just in flippant comments, that are public statements that turned out not to be true. For example, most recently he unveiled the Semi, the Tesla Semi and the Roadster, and he said the Semi will be available in 2019, the Roadster in 2020. Where is he producing those? Those production lines have to be up and approved now, years before we get final production.”

“Mercedes Benz has electric semis on the roads right now testing. You don’t hear them crowing about this every day. You don’t see the CEO coming out. They’re on the roads testing and so its not as if electric semi-cabs are new. They’ve been out and so it’s remarkable that this company keeps hyping things that are already out.”

“We’re puzzled but don’t ask us, just ask the score of executives who have left in the last two years. We have a spreadsheet. We have to keep expanding the spreadsheet because it keeps growing.”

When asked if he had a price target for Tesla equity, Mr. Chanos replied:

“We think the equity is worthless, so how is zero?… A company that is wholly dependent on the capital markets has to assume that the capital markets will always stay open to them and that’s a very dicey proposition in my lifetime.”

There is more to the interview, so enjoy it here:

Kynikos’ Jim Chanos: Tesla’s Elon Musk has a broad interpretation of the truth from CNBC.

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