Chapter 255 Investing in Tesla

"The view here is very nice."

Across from the sofa, Ms. Cathy looked out the window at the jetty and the vast blue sea and said.

"Yes, I had a dream before, to open a cafe on the beach in Miami, facing the sea and white sand every day, welcoming all kinds of guests, and listening to their stories. What do you think?"

"It should be boring. From what I know about you, you don't seem to be the kind of person who is willing to be lonely."

Ms. Cathy said bluntly.

Link smiled lightly and did not refute.

Ms. Cathy Wood is a very professional asset manager. After sitting down, she did not say much. She directly threw a stack of data reports, which were the accumulated asset investment reports for the fourth quarter of last year, and said that he needed to take a look.

Because he was too busy at the end of last year, he had no time, and it was not handed over to him until now.

Link saw a pile of information in front of him that was thicker than the "Complete Works of Shakespeare", and he couldn't help but have a headache. He was a boxer, liked money, but hated dealing with numbers. He would feel dizzy if he looked at that thing too much, but he couldn't not look at it.

As a self-made billionaire, every penny is hard-earned. He needs to know how his money came and how it went, so as not to fall into the hands of the number players on Wall Street.

"Kathy, I'll look at these materials when I go back. Tell me about the investment situation last quarter first."

Link said, stirring the coffee cup with a silver spoon.

"Okay!"

Ms. Cathie Wood took out a tablet from her bag and explained the investment and income situation in the fourth quarter to him in fluent and easy-to-understand language.

Starting from September 2008, Link's first capital was invested in Amazon's stock. Later, he added several investments. Now Amazon's stock is also his most valuable asset.

Cathy also first explained the income and dividends of Amazon's stock.

In September 2008, Amazon was affected by the financial crisis, and its total market value fell from 33.7 billion in June 2007 to 23.8 billion US dollars, a drop of 37%.

Amazon's stock also fell from 241 US dollars per share to 119 US dollars.

That was a good time to make a move.

Through Cathy, he used more than 12 million US dollars to get about 100,000 Amazon stocks.

Later, he won the WBA gold belt and defeated Tyson. Through boxing and advertising, he earned more than 20 million, and invested all of it in Amazon stocks.

He invested nearly 65 million US dollars in Amazon stocks.

In May 2009, the impact of the financial crisis gradually weakened, and the US stock market slowly recovered from the quagmire of decline.

The S\u0026P 500 index rose 211%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 313.2% during the same period, and the Nasdaq Composite Index, which is dominated by technology stocks, rose 370%.

As the US stock market rose sharply, Amazon's stock also rose from the lowest point of 108 US dollars to 332 US dollars. At the end of 2009, it rose to 346 US dollars. It is currently stable at around 336 US dollars.

Amazon's market value has also soared from more than 20 billion in 2008 to 66.2 billion US dollars, almost tripling, and is still growing.

Link holds 420,000 shares of Amazon, currently worth about $141 million.

The second key investment project is Twitter, a social networking service company.

Founded in July 2006, it is similar to a blog. Since 2008, it has gradually become a well-known microblog publishing platform.

Since Twitter has not yet gone public, if you want to get Twitter shares, you need to operate through financing.

In 2008, Facebook invested $500 million to try to acquire Twitter. Due to issues such as whether to merge Twitter into Facebook, the management of both parties did not reach an agreement and the acquisition failed. At that time, Twitter's stock value was $350 million to $400 million.

By February 2009, Twitter conducted its first round of financing. Affected by the financial crisis, its market value fell to between $200 million and $250 million.

At that time, Link did not pay attention to Twitter and did not take action.

In August last year, the number of registered users of Twitter exceeded 60 million, and the market value of the stock price was between $500 million and $600 million, and the second round of financing began.

Link used the Pioneer Asset Channel to obtain about 10.4% of Twitter shares with $65 million, becoming Twitter's fifth largest shareholder.

Last November, mutual fund company T. Rowe Price and private equity investment company Insight Venture Partners invested $100 million in Twitter and received 10% of Twitter's shares.

Twitter's valuation reached $1 billion.

Link's shares were diluted to 8.7%, but the market value rose to about 80 million.

In addition, he also has 22,000 shares of Apple, 11,000 shares of Google, and some Netflix and YouTube shares, with a total value of more than 48 million US dollars.

The total market value of these stocks is about 270 million US dollars. Including bank deposits, Dynasty Promotion shares, and Link Music Company, his net worth is about 360 million US dollars, which is 40 million higher than the data counted by Business Weekly.

Today he and Cathy need to talk about this year's investment arrangements.

He plans to sell Apple, Google, Netflix and other stocks in his hands, plus the deposits in his account, and buy some shares before Tesla goes public, striving to become a major shareholder qualified to join the board of directors.

In the future, the stocks he will hold will mainly be Amazon, Twitter, and Tesla.

As for Facebook, with a current market value of 18 billion, it is a hot commodity on Wall Street, and he has no right to intervene.

"Tesla? The electric car project led by Elon Musk?"

When Ms. Cathie Wood heard that he was going to invest in Tesla, she blinked her green eyes and looked at him in surprise.

"Yes, Elon is my neighbor, and his villa is not far from here. I talked to him once last time, and he told me that the future automobile transportation industry will be dominated by electric vehicles. Electric vehicles are more advanced, environmentally friendly, and more intelligent than gasoline vehicles. I agree with his statement."

Link spread his hands and talked about the advantages of electric vehicles.

From the perspective of technological development, the replacement of gasoline vehicles by electric vehicles is an inevitable product of social development.

According to the description of futurist Toffler in "The Third Wave", the third wave is the stage of information technology revolution. In this stage, social development is mainly marked by the invention and application of electronic computers, that is, the Internet era.

The industries that are more closely related to network intelligence will develop faster. For example, electric vehicles, artificial intelligence, GPT, OpenAI, etc. are all products of the third wave and are unstoppable.

"Link, what you said are all speculations, which do not conform to the market development situation. Another point is that you may not know Elon Musk. He is an idealist. He has been to Chinatown many times to promote his Mars immigration plan, space shuttle plan, and electric car plan. Everyone regards him as a madman, and no investment company is willing to invest in him.

In addition, SpaceX, owned by Elon Musk, has not been able to build a rocket so far, and the electric cars produced by Tesla Motors also have many problems. I don't think this is a suitable investment project."

Cathie Wood turned on the computer and called up Tesla's revenue last year. The fiscal deficit was as high as 520 million US dollars, and its market value was only 800 million US dollars, almost on the verge of bankruptcy.

So Tesla is not a good investment project.

Link looked through the data and found that Tesla's situation was worse than reported in the media.

"Kathy, I know that Elon Musk's ideals are a bit too advanced, and I also know that Tesla is not doing well, but I admire Musk's ideas and direction.

He is leading the times instead of simply copying other people's ideas. He is an adventurous explorer. Even if he fails, it is a useful attempt.

If I were a poor person, I could only applaud him. Now I have a large sum of money, and I am willing to take it out and do something meaningful.

But if he succeeds, Cathy, do you know what this means?"

Link stared at Cathy's beautiful eyes and smiled, "I will become richer, and you will become richer, so why not take a risk?"

Kathy didn't look at him, but looked down at the tablet screen, feeling a little helpless.

She and Link have known each other for more than a year. Although they don't meet often, about five or six times, they contact each other by phone or video every week.

When she first became a manager of Link Asset Management, she was very excited. Being a housekeeper for a handsome guy is much better than being a housekeeper for those greasy men, old men and women in their seventies and eighties. It can make money and be pleasing to the eyes.

The female colleagues in the same industry envy her very much.

In addition, Link's vision in investment is very similar to hers.

When the two talked for the first time in 2008, Link said that he was optimistic about the development of Amazon and believed that Amazon's stock would rise sharply after the financial crisis, as would other technology stocks.

This coincided with her point of view. She was also very optimistic about Amazon and other Internet technology stocks.

So Link's first investment went very smoothly.

The second time was in June, when Link called and said that he was ready to acquire some Twitter shares.

At that time, Facebook was the number one social stock, and MySpace, YouTube, MSN and other stocks also had great potential.

In comparison, Twitter's stock was not very eye-catching among many Internet stocks. If it was not managed carefully, Twitter would fail in the competition with other social software, and the investment would go down the drain.

However, this was Link's proposal.

She did not refute it immediately. After careful investigation and analysis, she found that Twitter was in good operating condition and several managers were capable people.

Under their management, the number of Twitter users has also been steadily increasing, especially after popular stars such as Link registered as Twitter users, the number of users has increased significantly.

Investing in Twitter is risky, but also profitable.

She personally met with the two founders of Twitter, Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams, talked with them, proposed a plan to invest, and mentioned the benefits of having a star shareholder like Link.

After many negotiations, she used 65 million US dollars to get 10.4% of Twitter shares.

This was also the biggest deal she had made since she entered the industry. She was so nervous at the time.

Afterwards, she often had nightmares, dreaming that Twitter went bankrupt and Link's investment was wasted. She also dreamed that Link pointed at her nose and scolded her for being useless, causing him to lose money.

That period was very anxious.

But only three months later, the number of Twitter users increased to 80 million, Twitter started the second round of financing, and the market value was pushed to 1 billion US dollars.

In just three months, Link's Twitter shares increased by more than 30% out of thin air, with an increase of more than 10 million.

And she also got more than one million commissions from this deal, became a millionaire, and was rewarded by the company. She was promoted from a small shrimp manager to a senior asset manager and had her own office in the company.

She felt that she was too lucky and felt that Link was her lucky star. After meeting Link, good things kept happening.

So she rejected the company's proposal to arrange other clients for her and concentrated on managing Link's account.

In the past two months, she used the company's information channels and made multiple small investments to help Link's account increase by more than 10 million balances, and her own account also increased by nearly one million commissions.

She felt that she was getting better and better, and her work was getting smoother and smoother. Maybe it wouldn't be long before she could become a multi-millionaire.

The future was bright.

But

Link suddenly said that he wanted to invest in Tesla, a project with no potential and about to go bankrupt.

Cathy didn't know how to persuade Link.

Although Link didn't know much about the specific operations of financial investment, he had a very good vision and was very stubborn. Once he identified a project, he would rush forward without hesitation, just like a train with a failed brake system.

What to do?

If she had known that Elon Musk lived next door to Link, she would have persuaded Link to move in advance, so as not to be deceived by this big liar.

Unfortunately, it was too late.

Ding!

Link tapped the edge of the cup with a coffee spoon and saw the manager Cathy whose face was changing.

"Is it difficult to just sell a hot stock and replace it with a portion of unpopular stocks?"

Cathy looked up at him and blinked her green eyes.

"It's easy to buy Tesla stocks. It can be done in two or three days. However, Tesla's operating conditions are very poor. The funds spent on battery pack research projects each year have reached hundreds of millions of dollars. It has not been successful for three or four consecutive years, causing the original shareholders to withdraw their shares. If we invest, it is very likely that we will lose everything. In this case, do you still want to invest?"

"Yes!"

Link said affirmatively.

Cathy frowned, her lower lip slightly raised, and looked at him with a helpless expression.

Link smiled softly, "Kathy, there is one thing you need to understand. I am a boxer. It is very easy for me to make money. The 48 million used to invest in Tesla can be earned in just a few minutes, so you don't have to worry about losing money. Invest boldly. I will take care of everything."

"Okay, don't blame me if you lose money. I am the manager of your assets. I can only make suggestions, not help you make decisions."

Kathy said with a serious expression.

"Of course!"

Link smiled softly and clinked his coffee cup with hers.