If he himself believes he can achieve his off-the-cuff deadlines or not doesn't matter for the rest of us: he already proven himself to be a fabulist, and after so many failed predictions, should know better than to air them in public, especially as he must be acutely aware that making such claims inflates his and his companies' net worth, and hence has legal implications. Only he cares not about those, as none of his past misdeeds had any serious consequences to himself.
Somehow his company is worth ~1.6 trillion dollars, with most of that valuation being confidence in his predictions. He is predicting humanoid useful robots soon. Tesla's valuation defies reason
Tesla stock goes up because it frequently goes up. It's a top-tier "buy the dip stock". Analysts know it, traders know it, the stock is a consistent winner. A total house of cards, but it hasn't fallen yet.
The problem with shorting is always timing. Additionally, with companies like TSLA or other large companies there's always the risk of a government bailout/backstop. The easiest way to predict the future is to look at incentives. Many of the people in power have huge incentives to not let companies like these fail/drop so it ends up taking an enormous event to trigger the unwinding.
You are right, but still I'd be much more concerned about snake oil from companies that no one can short.
The persistent short interest in Tesla shows at least that the critics are voicing their concerns in the market.
You and I might think that Tesla is overvalued, maybe. But if it's a bubble, at least it's not a fragile one that pops at the slightest pin prick like a few shorts.
How about the possibility that the cost of lying is less than the capital gains that can be realized by lying about it? EM was only fined $20 million when he said he had secured funding to take the company private at $420/share [0]. The stock bounce from that "news" was in the billions.
As it stands, he can get a trillion dollar pay package if a something-trillion market cap target is hit.
The question - is Musk lying on purpose, or is this more 90-90 rule where he made (obviously wrong) assumptions based on current progress?