"Well if you accept that they've been working against Tesla"
Where has it been indicated that I know that to be the case.
Can you demonstrate it is the case?
Besides, even if your theory is correct, who is to say that old auto would automatically end up being the owners of the Tesla IP?
And, as I said, even if old auto do pay up in order to win the auction for whatever remains of Tesla, with the intention of de-commissioning that IP, it would be an inordinately dumb allocation of capital given that just because Tesla fails, that does not mean the EV concept magically disappears off the competitive landscape.
What do you think the response from the prominent financial media, along with shareholders of car manufacturers, will be if the directors of their company stood up and said, "We're paying a few billion to buy the Tesla smarts and then we are going to do nothing with them?"
Institutional investors aren't dumb; they understand industry structure and technological change.
