"As for me, there I was, hustling as an associate litigator out in the wild with something to prove. I was still a few months away from penning my first substantive column for this site, building street cred not only as a lawyer but as an investor, when I made a little gamble on a few shares of an electric automaker called Tesla."
"And a gamble it was. If you've followed this column from the beginning, you know that I don't consider buying individual stocks to be much more economically productive than wandering a casino floor. Tesla was no exception: in 2018, the company was still two years away from achieving its first full year of net income, and most of that from selling regulatory credits to other automakers rather than from actually selling vehicles."
"At the time, however, I considered it worth the financial risk to invest a little money in companies like Tesla as a sort of moral imperative. Since I am not a dolt, I accept the reality of climate change. For those like me with a little extra money to invest, and an appetite for risk, helping along the only American car company that was actually making electric vehicles cool seemed a worthwhile pursuit for the planet if not necessarily for one's stock portfolio."
"Then there was the matter of Tesla's young, promising CEO Elon Musk. Now just hang on, hear me out before you start launching rotten vegetables in my direction. Remember, this was early 2018 Elon Musk! What the man actually believes, if anything, is incredibly difficult to ascertain at this point. There is a whole (lengthy) Wikipedia page dedicated solely to Musk's shifting, shimmering, often contradictory views."
In May 2018, Tesla remained unprofitable and depended heavily on regulatory credits rather than vehicle sales. An associate litigator purchased a small stake as a deliberate, risky bet driven by climate concerns and a desire to boost American EV adoption. The investor regarded support for Tesla as a moral imperative and accepted potential financial losses. Elon Musk's public views and behavior were already complex and contradictory, but his perceived promise and cultural influence made Tesla an appealing candidate for support. The purchase prioritized environmental and cultural objectives over short-term financial productivity.
Read at Above the Law
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