Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year • Hacker News Board

Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#11

Post by Animats » Fri, Aug 17, 2018, 4:16 AM UTC

"Then he got in a Tesla Model S and drove himself to the airport. En route, Mr. Musk typed his fateful message."

Don't text while driving.

This going private thing is a strange idea. Sell Tesla to the Saudi sovereign wealth fund? The one dedicated to keeping oil a viable industry? Does he want Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud as a boss? That makes no sense. Softbank might make sense.

Part of Musk's problem seems to be "Only I can fix it". Tesla desperately needs a chief operating officer. They have a VP of manufacturing, Gilbert Passin, who's a car guy, but he does not seem to be in charge. He's not the one living in the plant. There are people who have fixed broken production lines. Musk is not one of them.

Tesla finally produced 5,000 Model 3 units a week for two weeks running. That's encouraging. If they can sustain that rate for two months, and the quality complaints don't go up, they have the line working. Profitability is another matter. Tesla Fremont has a huge headcount for the output.

Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#12

Post by 40acres » Fri, Aug 17, 2018, 4:19 AM UTC

If you've read the biography by Ashlee Vance this shouldn't surprise you. Musk has always been a guy who runs at 100%, even at the sake of his personal life. On the one hand it's inspiring but also very concerning. The board should insist upon a COO.

Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#13

Post by dnomad » Fri, Aug 17, 2018, 4:25 AM UTC

enraged_camel wrote: post #10

dnomad wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to rumors I heard that Tesla's internal legal team has determined that Musk will have to give up one of his children. But then that could be just pure bullshit like all of these Tesla "rumors" turn out to be. When do you suppose people will learn not to buy into and repeat stupid rumors as fact?

There is a SEC investigation. We know that for a fact. And that fact alone indicates that the situation is extremely serious. Dire, even. The federal government does not look kindly upon stock manipulation. The linked NYTimes piece is Tesla's PR "submarine" at work. http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

The presence of an SEC investigation is cause for concern. But why not just say that? Why repeat absurd rumors about billion dollar investor lawsuits? What does it gain you to spread, by your own admission, completely baseless rumors?

I keep thinking HN is not the place for this sort of nonsense but then maybe I'm the one in the wrong. Certainly most discussions about Musk here are not based on any kind of rational analysis of the facts. Yours is the popular position, if a bit wearisome.

Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#14

Post by archagon » Fri, Aug 17, 2018, 4:31 AM UTC

_bxg1 wrote: post #7

This was about what I'd gathered. He's been reckless and made some huge errors in judgement over the past year, but despite it all I hope he succeeds. I don't think he's a hero or a saint like some people do, but his endeavors are having a very real and tangible positive effect on civilization. Most chiefly, as bad as the climate change situation looks right now, it would be so much worse without the insane amount of…

> Character flaws aside, Musk is the only billionaire alive (or even in recent memory) whose business ventures are netting any actual positive effect on society whatsoever.

Wait, what? How can you possibly justify that?

> Heck, he might be the only one not having a seriously detrimental effect on society right now. You don't have to like him to acknowledge that.

What about all those recent self-driving crashes? At best, they're poisoning the well for sensible self-driving legislation. At worst, they're killing people for no reason other than corporate hubris and greed. Then there's the matter of creepy corporate policing, such as the remote lockouts whenever somebody tries to examine the firmware, or the humiliating public accident reports whenever something goes wrong with one of the cars, or the forced corralling of all self-driving taxi business into a Tesla-exclusive service in the future.

Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#15

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Aug 17, 2018, 4:33 AM UTC

ndespres wrote: post #6

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know if you’ve ever put your whole body and life in to a project, but we can push ourselves well past our healthy limits. It can genuinely be hard on our bodies and our minds.

Very little sympathy from me for someone suffering from the delusions of grandeur combined with self-martyrdom, especially when combined with the petty foolishness constantly on display from him. And for what? To blow off his brothers wedding as described in the article to resume pacing the tesla plant speaks volumes about this guys character.

[deleted]

Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#16

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Aug 17, 2018, 4:38 AM UTC

_bxg1 wrote: post #7

This was about what I'd gathered. He's been reckless and made some huge errors in judgement over the past year, but despite it all I hope he succeeds. I don't think he's a hero or a saint like some people do, but his endeavors are having a very real and tangible positive effect on civilization. Most chiefly, as bad as the climate change situation looks right now, it would be so much worse without the insane amount of…

[deleted]

Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#17

Post by JumpCrisscross » Fri, Aug 17, 2018, 4:39 AM UTC

archagon wrote: post #14

_bxg1 wrote: post #7

This was about what I'd gathered. He's been reckless and made some huge errors in judgement over the past year, but despite it all I hope he succeeds. I don't think he's a hero or a saint like some people do, but his endeavors are having a very real and tangible positive effect on civilization. Most chiefly, as bad as the climate change situation looks right now, it would be so much worse without the insane amount of…

> Character flaws aside, Musk is the only billionaire alive (or even in recent memory) whose business ventures are netting any actual positive effect on society whatsoever. Wait, what? How can you possibly justify that? > Heck, he might be the only one not having a seriously detrimental effect on society right now. You don't have to like him to acknowledge that. What about all those recent self-driving crashes? At be…

> How can you possibly justify that?

Rockets! Cars propelled by faraway vibrations! Is there no room in our world for the brilliantly mad?

Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#18

Post by archagon » Fri, Aug 17, 2018, 4:40 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #17

archagon wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Character flaws aside, Musk is the only billionaire alive (or even in recent memory) whose business ventures are netting any actual positive effect on society whatsoever. Wait, what? How can you possibly justify that? > Heck, he might be the only one not having a seriously detrimental effect on society right now. You don't have to like him to acknowledge that. What about all those recent self-driving crashes? At be…

> How can you possibly justify that? Rockets! Cars propelled by faraway vibrations! Is there no room in our world for the brilliantly mad?

Sure, but it's almost absurd to argue that Musk is the only billionaire alive whose work is a net positive on society.

Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#19

Post by enraged_camel » Fri, Aug 17, 2018, 4:41 AM UTC

dnomad wrote: post #13

enraged_camel wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a SEC investigation. We know that for a fact. And that fact alone indicates that the situation is extremely serious. Dire, even. The federal government does not look kindly upon stock manipulation. The linked NYTimes piece is Tesla's PR "submarine" at work. http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

The presence of an SEC investigation is cause for concern. But why not just say that? Why repeat absurd rumors about billion dollar investor lawsuits? What does it gain you to spread, by your own admission, completely baseless rumors? I keep thinking HN is not the place for this sort of nonsense but then maybe I'm the one in the wrong. Certainly most discussions about Musk here are not based on any kind of rational a…

>>Why repeat absurd rumors about billion dollar investor lawsuits?

You misunderstand. The calculation is not about a single lawsuit costing billions. It's about potential damages from ALL possible lawsuits from pissed off short-sellers. And that's not absurd at all - it's a real possibility, since Tesla stock is one of the most popular on the stock market.

Re: Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

#20

Post by JumpCrisscross » Fri, Aug 17, 2018, 4:42 AM UTC

archagon wrote: post #18

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How can you possibly justify that? Rockets! Cars propelled by faraway vibrations! Is there no room in our world for the brilliantly mad?

Sure, but it's almost absurd to argue that Musk is the only billionaire alive whose work is a net positive on society.

> that Musk is the only billionaire alive whose work is a net positive on the world

No. But he’s a better bet than many. Including network effects, his work has added value, if only by accelerating retroactively obvious ideas.