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SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private Deal

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Re: SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private Deal

#281

Post by tigershark »

bilbo0s wrote: post #191
saiya-jin wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sour comment for whatever reason... It's actually pretty simple - imagine the world that is and probably will be with him, and then one without him. We underdogs hate to be not credited for the hard work we do, but his positive impact on mankind as a whole is quite substantial, and as time goes by it will be only magnified. Hard to argue with this. SpaceX and Tesla are really a bit more than just a sum of all the eng…

The world with him, is a whole lot like the world without him though. I mean, I did the thought experiment, and I honestly don't see many things that would be different? Are you arguing that without Musk, we wouldn't have commercial space companies, or electric cars? If so, I find that a bit difficult to believe. The part of your comment about no one being a hero is correct. None of us are any better than anyone else…

As far as I remember he was laughed at for just thinking to build reusable rockets or to sell electric cars. Either I or you have very serious memory problems. But I’m pretty confident that I can link several sources to corroborate my recalling of the events, can you do the same? If you can prove that the people that were laughing at him would have brought the electric car mainstream and would have invented reusable rockets without him than you are right. I’m eagerly waiting for your ironclad proof.

Re: SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private Deal

#282

Post by kire2345 »

jonknee wrote: post #181
Cshelton wrote: post #13

I'm willing to bet the only thing that will come of this is a fine and a slap on the wrist.

Why? He's a huge liability to the company every day he remains with this hanging over his head. The SEC directly says he "violated, and unless restrained and enjoined will continue to violate, Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act". Other than a fine, they're pushing for him to be barred from serving as an officer of a public company.

Could Tesla move to another country and get listed there instead, so he could stay CEO?

Re: SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private Deal

#283

Post by sqquuiiiddd »

jacquesm wrote: post #273
Animats wrote: post #246

He definitely lost it. And it's going to cost him. This is an open and shut case against Musk. He definitely sent out that tweet. Yes, maybe just not enough sleep and too many drugs. Not a good excuse. Tesla might do better with a new CEO. They're past the vision stage. Tesla's problems today are all those of running a big auto plant. Musk might do better focusing on Space-X.

I was with you right up to here: > Musk might do better focusing on Space-X. Maybe. As long as he does not claim the CEO slot.

It’s a private company

Re: SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private Deal

#284

Post by [deleted] »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #77
dasil003 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to agree, but it’s a double-edged sword. Without Musk’s cult of personality it’s unclear whether sufficient capital can be secured to bridge Tesla to a sustainable future. Of course given his recent behavior it may not matter either way.

It would be interesting if China offered Musk their resources if he really gets banned from holding an executive position at Tesla.

[deleted]

Re: SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private Deal

#285

Post by greenshackle2 »

compcoffee wrote: post #132
empath75 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say the shorts don't have any power to hurt tesla, but much of tesla's and elon musk's personal debt is backed by Tesla shares. If the price dips too low, it's potentially catastrophic for the company and him.

> If the price dips too low, it's potentially catastrophic for the company and him. Shorting a stock doesn't magically make its price drop.

More buys = higher price. More sells = lower price. Shorting is selling* . This is neither magic nor controversial.

* And buying back later of course. But in the meantime, does a short-sell look any different than a sell on the order book?

Re: SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private Deal

#286

Post by DennisP »

bilbo0s wrote: post #191
saiya-jin wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sour comment for whatever reason... It's actually pretty simple - imagine the world that is and probably will be with him, and then one without him. We underdogs hate to be not credited for the hard work we do, but his positive impact on mankind as a whole is quite substantial, and as time goes by it will be only magnified. Hard to argue with this. SpaceX and Tesla are really a bit more than just a sum of all the eng…

The world with him, is a whole lot like the world without him though. I mean, I did the thought experiment, and I honestly don't see many things that would be different? Are you arguing that without Musk, we wouldn't have commercial space companies, or electric cars? If so, I find that a bit difficult to believe. The part of your comment about no one being a hero is correct. None of us are any better than anyone else…

Tesla completely changed the public perception of electric cars, from slow eco-friendly compacts to high-performance sports cars. Without Tesla I doubt that Mercedes would be spending $12 billion on electric cars, or Porsche would be releasing an electric car next year with a 0-60 time of 3.5 seconds and a nationwide fast charging network in the U.S. Tesla proved that it's possible and that there's demand for it.

SpaceX significantly lowered launch costs even before achieving reusability, and with reusability is changing the game completely. However, Jeff Bezos isn't that far behind with Blue Origin, and probably wasn't inspired by SpaceX; he started a long time ago and was a space nut from an early age. Still, it's better to have two great companies with cheap reusable rockets, rather than just one, and the two companies have somewhat different long-term goals.

Re: SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private Deal

#287

Post by colordrops »

rayiner wrote: post #128
drawkbox wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Elon Musk is removed as CEO at Tesla, Tesla is over. I find it curious that an innovative American company pushing to help our carbon problem by going electric is so lambasted, shorted, constantly under attack. It cannot be argued that Tesla pushed forward both electric cars and self-driving vehicles as a major force (original self-driving push was a DoD X-Prize) Personally I like when American companies succeed a…

> It cannot be argued that Tesla pushed forward both electric cars and self-driving vehicles as a major force (original self-driving push was a DoD X-Prize Sure it can. Tesla has done basically nothing for self-driving cars, it's technology is glorified lane-keeping. As to electric cars, the Model S is the third best-selling electric car ever, after the Nissan Leaf and the Chevy Volt. Both of those cars were introduc…

You are missing a few facts that completely oppose the point of your comment: the model S is not Tesla's first electric - that would be the Roadster, which was release a couple years before the other cars you mention. Chevy Volt is not full electric and can't get very far on pure electric. And the Nissan Leaf is a glorified golf cart that doesn't surpass 100 miles on a charge.

The frank truth is that both the better design and range of Tesla vehicles set the stage for electric cars to be adopted by everyone rather than just special interest groups.

You can be assured that every manufacturer in the world, such as BMW, is building up electric manufacturing capability due to the success of Tesla, and not Nissan.

Re: SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private Deal

#288

Post by jkqwzsoo »

quenstionsasked wrote: post #263
the_rosentotter wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't doubt he's capable of doing that with his background Which background is that? He has an undergraduate degree in economics and a bachelor's degree in physics. I respect the guy but he clearly puts a lot into managing his image. As a relevant example, he used to claim to have been in the Ph.D. program at Stanford, but had to retract that (I leave it as an exercise to the reader to find that on Google).

I'm very curious about the Stanford thing. Do you mean that he was never admitted? Or simply that he never officially enrolled? I tried my hand at googling this but found nothing but re-hashes of the same story of how he left after two days.

I couldn't find anything either.

My guess would be that you aren't technically in the PhD program until you've passed your qualifying exam. Until that point, you're a graduate student but not a PhD student. After you pass your preliminary exam, you're a PhD/Doctoral candidate.

Also, it's a moot point. There are no bragging rights to be found in simply being admitted to a PhD program. Plenty of very intelligent people fail to complete a PhD program (usually, IME, because of personality issues/conflict with the advisor (sadly extremely common), inflexibility of the advisor and/or department, or personal reasons (economic, social, health)).

(to be clear, Musk didn't brag that he was admitted to Stanford - he suggested that he felt dropping out was more useful than continuing. His fans often hold up being admitted to a PhD program as evidence of his engineering background)

Re: SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private Deal

#289

Post by bduerst »

Cshelton wrote: post #29
dawhizkid wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and irrepairable loss of investor trust

I don't believe so. I have been a Tesla owner and investor for a long time now. I know where Elon comes from, what missions and goals he has stated for years now, and what he is trying to accomplish. I promise you, Elon legitimately thought there would be an opportunity to go private again. He's said he wanted to do so in the past, and even has said they never wanted to go public, but were left with no choice. I don'…

Au contraire - I think what's more fascinating about this is Musk's personal branding, which apologists like you have bought into. Just hear me out.

I mean, insiders and the SEC clearly know he didn't have an offer to go private on the table when he announced. With Musk's pattern of behavior on twitter recently (pedophile name-calling, weed gifs, etc.) it's much more likely that he was reacting to the short sellers that got under his skin, rather than making a calm, confident announcement of acquisition as you say. When Musk's team finally scrambled together an offer after the announcement, Musk rejected it outright because he was paranoid about Volkswagen [1], a manufacturer that would have helped solve Tesla's scaling problems.

There's always going to be short sellers. There are not always going to be CEOs who let them get under their skin or let hubris in the way of business.

[1] http://archive.is/cuuor

Re: SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private Deal

#290

Post by jonknee »

kire2345 wrote: post #282
jonknee wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? He's a huge liability to the company every day he remains with this hanging over his head. The SEC directly says he "violated, and unless restrained and enjoined will continue to violate, Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act". Other than a fine, they're pushing for him to be barred from serving as an officer of a public company.

Could Tesla move to another country and get listed there instead, so he could stay CEO?

Not without facing a huge number of lawsuits. If your business plan requires being led by someone the SEC has banned you need a new business plan.
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