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1\ Something happened to $TSLA between October 17th and 18th that made them reverse course on several of Musk's foundational lies.
Was it internal, from the board, or external, from a regulator or law enforcement body?
Was it internal, from the board, or external, from a regulator or law enforcement body?
2\ First, $TSLA abandoned its vapourware "Full Self Drive" product. Recall that as late as Oct 16th, Musk was bloviating expansively on the topic:
3\ But on the 18th, this product was quietly given the Old Yeller treatment: 
4\ Then, on the 24th, $TSLA dropped all pretense of being on the road to mass production of the Model 3. The earnings release departed from past releases by dropping production totals by model line, and no mention was made of future production targets.
5\ On the call, there was almost no mention about Model 3 production targets. When asked directly, Musk said "we're not prepared to speak to that right now" and made a vague statement about perhaps getting to 7K/week at some point. What happened to the ramp story!?
6\ Finally, on the 26th, $TSLA discontinued the Model 3 "Performance" product. Recall that Musk had claimed this product was physically different from standard Model 3s, but that customers were discovering this to be yet another $TSLA lie:
7\ What's notable is not that $TSLA abandoned fake products. Musk's legacy is a trail of fake products (battery swap, solar powered chargers, vertically integrated gigafactory, solar roof tile)...
8\ What's notable is that the three abandoned narratives (FSD, M3P, M3 ramp) are narratives about the *future*, narratives that Musk was pumping just days before their discontinuance. Not only that, $TSLA is giving refunds to customers who were lied to.
9\ I'll also note that the fake "solar roof tile" (used as a pretext for rescuing Musk's cousin from bankruptcy) slipped further into obscurity in the Q3 release. No longer any mention of sales (p'haps b/c a journo discovered 11 out of 12 installations were to $TSLA employees)...
10\ Now $TSLA says they are "iterating" the roof tile, and maybe they'll sell some in 2019. Only a single reference in the entire earnings release.
11\11 We now know that $TSLA moved its earnings release forward on 48hrs notice because they were told of an upcoming WSJ expose about an FBI investigation. My guess is $TSLA found out on the 18th, and that's when they decided to stop lying about fake products.
I mis spoke here. They massively cut the price.
