So if he's banned from running a public company, could he... take Tesla private?
SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private Deal
751–760 of 884 posts
Re: SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private Deal
#752Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is just revisionist history and completely wrong. Steve Jobs pretty much set Apple on the premium goods track when he returned. The iMac, iPod, iPad, iPhone were all developed under his watch and all were premium priced. Apple has pushed the margins higher but that's only because the market can absorb it. Computing is more central to people's lives and they are willing to pay a premium for a good experience.
I've started to think Apple is more competitive on laptops than it looks from the price. Every time I've priced out a laptop with similar configuration to my MBP (including a good-quality display, NvME SSD, good battery life), it always ends up costing about the same as an MBP. And then Apple's customer service definitely tips in their favor (I've been spoiled by fast, convenient, competent repair service at the Appl…
If one of the three or four configurations Apple sells is exactly the one you want, there isn't much or any premium. But if you make a fair comparison by picking a configuration at random (or e.g. pick a particular program that you want to run) then you can easily end up paying 50-100% more to get an Apple that does what you need.
Re: SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private Deal
#753Earlier quoted context omitted.
The difference with him is he is trying to move humanity forward and truly improve things and helping to secure our long term survival. Those short sellers don't care about any of that, they only care about making money and it's understandable that Musk is trying to find ways to ruin their game. Musk should have run this type of tweet by his close business friends / counsel. I hope he will only get a slap on the wris…
Musk is trying to make money, and he says that he is trying to move humanity forward to secure our long term survival. This may very well be true. However, similar statements are often made by people committing scams in order to give investors and the public an excuse to ignore serious signs of fraud. Anyone who gives him a free pass because of his claims of saving humanity is potentially making an enormous mistake.…
I don't think he's a scammer at all - I think to him money is just a tool to achieve his mission, i.e. solving tough problems.
But I agree - he shouldn't have tweeted that and he should have consulted his business partners first.
Re: SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private Deal
#754Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I give you a 3 billion dollar investment, it's not hard to create a billion dollar company with that.
That's the whole problems isn't it. Nobody gives you $3 billion to do anything. You generally have to earn that from $0.
Unless you have investors.
Re: SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private Deal
#755Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd hope the company itself would be fine. I really hate this idea of the grand visionary. A good friend of mine who is a mechanical engineer despises Musk. I listened to a bit of his Joe Regan interview and when Regan asked him how he has the time to do all of the things he does, there are smoke jokes about him being an alien, but not once did he say, "Well I have an amazing team of engineers" and credit all the tho…
The company won't be fine because it'll be trading at $20 per share. (Yes, $20 is hyperbole, now read the rest) The real issue will be the 2019 bondholder covenants. Tesla won't have the cash to pay them, Tesla won't have the buying interest to absorb dilution, and Tesla will still need money. Basically with a lower and lower share price Tesla has fewer and fewer ways to service its debt and do further fundraising. T…
Tesla's debt servicing cost 600 million yearly (Bill Cunningham estimates). It is producing Model 3s at a pace of 4k weekly (according to Bloomberg). Each represents 15kUSD in gross profit (according to Munro). It takes ten weeks to service the yearly debt using current Model 3 sales.
If these numbers are right, once Tesla proved to be able to produce Model 3s, it became financially stable. It will easily be able to roll-over bonds.
Re: SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private Deal
#756Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought the narrative was they just need to get through the short term before production stabilizes and is able to meet demand. I do feel there is a difference between Tesla the car, and Tesla the company. Tesla the car is still the most desirable electric on the market. Tesla the company is a different story altogether.
The narrative shifts constantly because the narrative is anti-Tesla. So it has to shift, whenever they make it past another hurdle. It started with them being ridiculous for even trying to make an electric car. Then it became that they couldn't mass produce. Now they are being mass produced. It sometimes shifts towards their safety, but it isn't a preferred avenue of attack because the stats show that the cars are sa…
The narrative shifts constantly because the narrative is
anti-Tesla. So it has to shift, whenever they make it past
another hurdle.
Re: SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private Deal
#757Hopefully it only hits Tesla (which never understood people excitement) and a deal can be made he's staying head honcho (resarch? vision?) at SpaceX where I really think he can help humanity (hopefully Mars will not become a land grab as the US was, but I fear it's the same again)
Re: SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private Deal
#758Hopefully it only hits Tesla (which never understood people excitement) and a deal can be made he's staying head honcho (resarch? vision?) at SpaceX where I really think he can help humanity (hopefully Mars will not become a land grab as the US was, but I fear it's the same again)
This seems incredibly unlikely because his actions were so independent of Tesla. They aren't pursuing Tesla right now, they're pursuing Musk personally.
Re: SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private Deal
#759Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you say for SpaceX's sake? Would it not be great news for SpaceX that their CEO would be forced out of the other companies he's running, and thus almost has to focus most of his time on SpaceX?
When the sec bans you from running a company, you’re banned from running -any- company
> The SEC [..] will ask a judge to bar Musk from serving as an officer or director of a public company
Article says public company. SpaceX is private.
Re: SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private Deal
#760Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've started to think Apple is more competitive on laptops than it looks from the price. Every time I've priced out a laptop with similar configuration to my MBP (including a good-quality display, NvME SSD, good battery life), it always ends up costing about the same as an MBP. And then Apple's customer service definitely tips in their favor (I've been spoiled by fast, convenient, competent repair service at the Appl…
This has been true for me until the last generation (Touchbar) Macbooks came out in 2016. They seem to be vastly more expensive than the older generation was and are usually quite a bit more than a comparable non-Apple Laptop. A well equipped 15" used to be around 2500 EUR, nowadays it's 600+ EUR more.
Yeah the touchbar really drives up the price, it's basically an apple watch built into a macbook (big oled screen, fingerprint reader and the apple watch's chip, plus all the interconnects required). So adding the price of an apple watch to a macbook pro makes sense.