> In the short term the market is a popularity contest; in the long term it is a weighing machine

Warren Buffett

Elon is undoubtedly skilled at driving up hype - the popularity contest part. As for long term - Tesla themselves claim they never plan to pay dividends.

This reply is non-sensical and unrelated.

A widely held stock means that many people fundamentally believe in a company and its leadership, and are voting with their wallets.

#2 most widely held on Robinhood, #1 most traded on Fidelity this last Friday.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nasdaq.com/articles/the-top...

https://eresearch.fidelity.com/eresearch/gotoBL/fidelityTopO...

Your argument in non-sensical - how are retail investors are good judge of character or safety when they can't even judge financial performance?

80% to 95% of retails traders/investors lose money in the stock market.

When Elon tweeted 'use Signal' (the app) they bought shares of 'Signal Advance' and it soared 400%, a totally wrong organisation. Then there is GME and many other stories. Obviously they are free to do what they want with their money, but are these the people you would trust with, well, anything?

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/11/signal-advance-jumps-another...

To be fair, though, holding a position is really only an indication that you believe in the position — not in the company itself. If you think Elon Musk tweeting “use Signal” will send a speciously-related stock soaring, it makes sense to buy that stock!

> how are retail investors are good judge of character or safety when they can't even judge financial performance?

[Citation needed]

Price discovery is a primary function of a financial market. TSLA is widely held and highly valued. These are facts. The burden is on you to refute this and general platitudes and whataboutism doesn't cut it.

I'd go so far to bet that 85-95% of long term TSLA investors have made money, not lost it. Guess who's leading TSLA?

Is your premise here that retail investors are sharper than professionals? The two groups, on average, tend to have very different opinions of Tesla stock.

Is your premise institutional investors are not bullish on TSLA? Short interest is under 4%, and the company is one of the largest by market cap in the world.

Parent was suggesting no one should trust Musk, due to a few Twitter lapses.

My premise is that given the breadth, and depth of people investing in Musk's companies, there may be more to the story.

Look, if 85% retail investors loosing money does not convince you that they can't judge financial performance, then I probably can't convince you that Earth is round.

Replace TSLA with in your post Bitcoin and you sound like a 'true believer'.

I am perfectly happy with people believing/cheering on TSLA/Crypto, just let's clearly tell that apart from an independent, unbiased assessment.

It only seems non-sensical because you seem have shifted the bar from "sane" to "wise, prudent and good judges of character". This is the original hyperbolic claim that was being responded to.

> Surely nobody sane would never trust his word on anything for any purpose ever again after that display.