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One way I think of Renaissance and some of these other quant funds is almost a retirement package for so many of these academics and researchers.

As has been mentioned elsewhere, these are some of the best and brightest people from their fields who have established reputations and are well-known in their fields. I would assume most of these people have spent the bulk of their professional lives working in academia or in pure research, so I do wonder how many of the RenTech employees are people have been working for (relative) peanuts in academia before making the switch towards the end of their careers and "cashing out" essentially. Pretty sweet if you ask me.

Sure maybe it would look like that if Tesla were in fact Amazon. But Tesla makes cars, they don't sell tablecloths and rent servers.

There is very high operating leverage in Automotive manufacturing. Hence why this cycle continues forever:

Elon: That's it, we don't need to raise anymore outside capital! 9 months later: Insert equity/bond/convert raise here.

The inanity of the comparison knows no end... If you think Tesla and Amazon are similar businesses in any way, I have a short-term, tech-enabled, real-estate company to sell you, too.

You're right, the goal isn't to be profitable next year, it was to be profitable this year. Actually, Elon said "I am optimistic about being profitable in Q1 and all quarters going forward," not even a year ago. So much for that. Also, Tesla isn't a startup--they've been in business for more than 15 years.

Tesla's annual depreciation outpaces their capital spending, so they aren't even spending enough to maintain their current assets. Last year they missed their planned CapEx by something like $1 billion. Also not something a "growth" company does.

That's because they are (and have been) in a precarious financial condition for almost their entire history, only made worse by the recent acquisition of an insolvent solar company in order to bailout you and your family members financial stakes.

Right, the Business Roundtable, led by venerable and respected institutions such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Exxon, Chevron, General Dynamics, and--wait for it-- Amazon.

It's virtue signaling.

Cool.

The point was that his comment was a non-sequitor. The EU strengthening Google's monopoly position will not make advertising go away.

... What?