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There was a time when Tesla (TSLA) was the Nvidia (NVDA) of its day. Its stock did nothing but go up, and its earnings calls were intensely anticipated.

For a full 30 months now, Tesla has been a dog. It is down 55% from its peak, and for an ostensibly high-tech company to be worth less than half its peak value in this complete joke of a market is pretty shameful.

As cynical as I am about equities, I do believe that superstar companies that keep vaulting to lifetime highs (like Alphabet (GOOGL), Eli Lilly (LLY), Microsoft (MSFT), Oracle (ORCL), Chipotle (CMG), and so forth) must, by definition, be exceptionally well-managed. Whatever they’re doing, they’re doing well. To deny it would be the equivalent of looking at a world-class athlete and just saying the medals were all from dumb luck. No, it’s skill, talent, and effort.

Just as there is exceptional management, there’s also crap management, and if a company has a fundamentally poor corporate culture, it’s eventually going to find its way:

(a) to every level of the company, and

(b) into the stock price

I have steadfastly avoided sharing the inside scoop of what I’ve heard about the corporate culture, but let’s just say it aligns with the -55% change in stock price.

I will say, however, that as a person who has been actively waving a purchase order around, trying to buy another Tesla vehicle, I’m shocked at the level of attention (or lack of it, to be more precise) I’ve been getting. Here’s just a chunk of the text conversation I’ve been having with their sales group. As you can see, it’s all green – – which is just me trying to get a response!

This has gone on for weeks. At this very moment I am typing these words, my phone is on speakerphone, playing dreadful hold music as I am trying, yet again, to reach the sales department there.

When I got my Tesla Model S in 2012 (approaching 175,000 miles and going strong!) I felt like a rock star. I got amazing service from every touch point of Tesla.

These days, I’m desperately waving $55,000 of cash in the air, wanting to give it to them, and I can’t even get the time of day.

This company is seriously, seriously broken.

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