On 22 January 2019, which was the 23rd here in Sydney, I bought my first Tesla shares through ANZ Share Investing at US$298.26 each. It wasn't a hot take for the timeline. It was a decision to put real money behind a company I thought was badly underpriced.
I'd been following along while the Model 3 clawed its way out of what Elon called production hell, with the temporary tent line at Fremont, the push towards five thousand cars a week, and then a proper GAAP profit in the third quarter of 2018. Tesla was doing its learning in public, mistakes and all, and I found that more convincing than worrying. Most of the mainstream coverage still treated the company like a punchline, and the gap between what I was watching and what the loudest voices were saying is exactly why I bought.
Tesla doesn't advertise the way legacy car makers and oil companies do, so outlets that live on those ad budgets had little reason to be fair to it, and the FUD never let up. I stopped treating that coverage as my main source and kept up through independent creators instead: Rob Maurer on Tesla Daily, Steven Mark Ryan on Solving the Money Problem, Galileo Russell's HyperChange (one of the OGs), Dave Lee, Now You Know, the Ride the Lightning podcast, and the longer research from ARK Invest. They kept me grounded while the stock still looked cheap next to a Model 3 that was finally scaling and a car company that was really a software company.
That first buy wasn't a victory lap. It was the first cheque on a thesis I plan to keep funding whenever the noise gets louder, and the noise is about to get a lot louder. If Model 3 keeps scaling and the independent creators keep being right about the software story, I expect to add when the FUD spikes again. For now the starting line is simple: real money behind a company I still think is badly underpriced.