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

nytimes.com

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

#191

Post by alkonaut »

travbrack wrote: post #155
skrebbel wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a hidden false dichotomy there: That Tesla and Space X couldn't exist / succeed without Musk working his employees and himself into a burnout. I'm not sure that that is true. The same Musk with the same employees could've perfectly well done these companies at a sane pace - maybe even without losing speed in the grand scheme of things given that less stuff would've gone wrong.

They're struggling to meet production goals even with the staff burning the candle at both ends, and using a highly automated assembly line. What could they do to be more efficient? I'm sure Musk would love to hear if you have an idea.

They could set more realistic growth/production goals. I’m not sure if it’s financially viable to do so, but the “normal” way of growing production from zero to several thousand cars a week is the pace that VW and Toyota did it - over say 50 years. This idea of taking companies from zero to massive within less than several decades of organic growth I think is doomed unless you accept a lot of burnout (which you shouldn’t).

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

#192

Post by dsfyu404ed »

travbrack wrote: post #155
skrebbel wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a hidden false dichotomy there: That Tesla and Space X couldn't exist / succeed without Musk working his employees and himself into a burnout. I'm not sure that that is true. The same Musk with the same employees could've perfectly well done these companies at a sane pace - maybe even without losing speed in the grand scheme of things given that less stuff would've gone wrong.

They're struggling to meet production goals even with the staff burning the candle at both ends, and using a highly automated assembly line. What could they do to be more efficient? I'm sure Musk would love to hear if you have an idea.

>using a highly automated assembly line

Last I heard the established automakers were basically laughing at the quality and amount of automation on their production lines. Has this changed?

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

#193

Post by dingaling »

lazysheepherd wrote: post #48
tomhoward wrote: post #37

But, he added, “if you have anyone who can do a better job, please let me know. They can have the job. Is there someone who can do the job better? They can have the reins right now.” I think this hits at the crux of the issue around the performance/behaviour of Musk and other leaders of hugely ambitious companies. And I think it highlights the importance of thinking about what kinds of people it will take to lead the…

This. People apparently have a little self reflection, if at all. Let's get something straight: every person is a piece of shit, in some ways, granted some a bit more and some a bit less. Your project manager is a piece of shit in some ways, the new intern is, in her ways, your parents are, like it or not, in their own little ways. And finally you are a piece of shit, in your own distinct ways. But of all the pieces…

Landing boosters from orbit wasn't an original objective of Space-X. It arose as an off the cuff suggestion from an engineer after they failed to obtain Russian engines.

Mr Musk deserves credit for running with the idea despite incredulity, but it wasn't due to his vision.

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

#194

Post by SkyMarshal »

Animats wrote: post #11

"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 "O…

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?

The sheiks and leaders of most of the Mideast oil producers know their oil will run out eventually, and one of the mandates of their sovereign wealth funds is to diversify their economies. Dubai is probably the most progressive in this respect, but Saudi Arabia and the others are as well to some extent.

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

#195

Post by mattmaroon »

tomhoward wrote: post #37

But, he added, “if you have anyone who can do a better job, please let me know. They can have the job. Is there someone who can do the job better? They can have the reins right now.” I think this hits at the crux of the issue around the performance/behaviour of Musk and other leaders of hugely ambitious companies. And I think it highlights the importance of thinking about what kinds of people it will take to lead the…

As someone who has come really close on several occasions to buying TSLA puts (the options version of shorting) I think I can answer: the shorts aren't haters.

The shorts don't want Tesla to fail. The shorts don't even think Tesla will fail.

The shorts just think the market cap of Tesla is insane. It's higher than much larger, profitable automakers who can provably make and sell cars at scale.

For Tesla to be worth its share price it has to grow by two orders of magnitude. I won't even say that that won't happen. It could. But it'll take years. And when it does the stock won't be worth more than it is now.

On top of that there are risk factors. What if energy density of batteries doesn't substantially improve and all electric vehicles continue to be unappealing to large chunks of the population due to range anxiety? What if all electric does win (it's going to eventually) but the other companies are able to compete well enough and Tesla just becomes another Ford?

Their share price is just out of control. The market can stay irrational longer than I can stay solvent, but I can totally see how someone with very deep pockets could find shorting Tesla a good bet even if they don't want it to (or even think it will) fail.

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

#196

Post by lylecubed »

tomhoward wrote: post #37

But, he added, “if you have anyone who can do a better job, please let me know. They can have the job. Is there someone who can do the job better? They can have the reins right now.” I think this hits at the crux of the issue around the performance/behaviour of Musk and other leaders of hugely ambitious companies. And I think it highlights the importance of thinking about what kinds of people it will take to lead the…

> Do we actually want Tesla and SpaceX to fail?

There are billions of dollars invested in Tesla's demise through shorts. Yes, quite a few people need Tesla to fail. A lot of those people also own media companies. Musk isn't being hyperbolic when he says the short sellers "are desperately pushing a narrative that will possibly result in Tesla’s destruction."

> what kinds of people it will take to lead the next generation of such companies, and how we can identify and develop them.

This was something I was thinking about the other day as well, except I wasn't thinking about Tesla. I was thinking about Apple and how Jobs clearly didn't prepare for his inevitable death. Had it been anybody else, I would have been able to explain it away as not being able to predict the future, but Apple has suffered through Jobs leaving once before. More or less the exact same thing happened both times (to the company after he left, I mean. Not to Jobs himself, obviously). So why didn't Jobs do a better job of finding and cultivating a successor?

edit: added clarification

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

#197

Post by SkyMarshal »

Nasrudith wrote: post #186

Really Elon Musk has struck me as honestly in need of psychiatric help - not in a derogatory way but a sincere one. Between the outbursts, shortsighted impulsive decisions, and well being CEO of so many different companies at once it sort of resembles some combination of ADHD and Bipolar.

Yeah it’s not a good look for him, like he’s cracking under the pressure. That’s encouraging his short sellers, not discouraging them. He really needs to get a grip, chill, and be more strategic with his PR.

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

#198

Post by simion314 »

speedplane wrote: post #64
simion314 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would really liked for Tesla and Space X to keep the hype down, then we could have discussed here forever technical stuff and not debate the hyped PR stunts.

If they didn’t have hype, they wouldn’t be funded and they wouldn’t get off the ground. Hype is now an unfortunate requirement of any successful company.

But the big disadvantage is when the hype will work against you, there are many examples like the No Man Sky game that was a decent game but because of the hype it will be forever remembered on how not to hype the product, in the present the game has the promissed features but very few will take a look at it.

I understand that a company wants good PR, but I think you need to keep it real, like if a dude posts a video of Tesla self driving on some roads instead of Musk sharing it they can not do it or share but put a include the message that you mustk keep your hand on the wheel and pay attention. The reality is that now a Tesla has a non zero chance of driving you into a large object and killing you, when this happens your public image suffers when you promised autopilot but if you instead market this as a drive assistant that collects and learns how to drive and in future will become autopilot then the backlash will not affect you.

I know that in small print and the big TOS this things are very clear but the PR and social media activity of Tesla and Musk contradict those terms.

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

#199

Post by bjl »

lolive wrote: post #105
Fnoord wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its easy to say that because the chance of it happening is slim, and it allows for him to bail out if that's occurring short-term. For me, Musk's major failure was with the children who were lost in a cave and his pedophile tweet. Everyone has flaws and makes mistakes, but that mistake showed me how flawed his personality is. It was classic narcissism behaviour, right from textbook.

His apologies tweet is indeed quite good. And shows that he is learning everyday:"His actions against me do not justify my actions against him, and for that I apologise". Cf https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-44870303 for the details. [I let you decide if this is pure PR, or real apologies.]

That tweet was a classic non-apology. He tried to shift as much of the blame as possible for his actions onto the British ex-pat; I can't understand how people think that shows genuine remorse.

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

#200

Post by dharma1 »

I'm afraid his health will be impacted by several years of unimaginable stress caused too much responsibility, real and perceived attacks on his business, sometimes unrealistic promises - and trying to follow up on them, long hours and lack of sleep. Not to mention the trade offs he has made with family/friends vs work.

I think we should all be very grateful to the hugely important work he is doing to advance electric vehicles and space exploration, literally forcing two slow moving industries to move much faster, in the right direction. But I wish he was able to do it without working himself to death, or by expecting his colleagues work to death. Maybe it's not possible

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