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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

#771

Post by pbhjpbhj »

the_rosentotter wrote: post #161
djsumdog wrote: post #68

Earlier 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…

> 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).

>undergraduate degree in economics and a bachelor's degree in physics.

I'm in the UK my understanding is a bachelor's is a synonym for an undergraduate degree; so why did you use the different terms here?

Ah, I think I see it: you copied from Wikipedia; wherein it says he did a bachelors degree in Economics (BA?) and a further bachelors in physics (BS/BSc) whilst he was a graduate. Two undergraduate degrees.

Other sources suggest he did the degrees coterminously:

>"Musk graduated from UPenn in 1994, with double bachelor degrees in Physics (from the College of Arts and Sciences) and Economics (from the Wharton School)." (http://studyadvantage.co/elon-musk-education-study/)

That sources says he had 2 days in a PhD program.

https://www.wharton.upenn.edu/academic-programs/ suggests he did what they call a "dual degree". Making Wikipedia wrong, he didn't "stay" for his second degree he did the two together.

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

#772

Post by Mirioron »

rpedela wrote: post #404
anonytrary wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon Musk has always had a disdain for the responsibility of running a public company, it seems perfectly reasonable that he tweet, in exasperation, that he wishes to make the company private. Why do so many people in this thread want the only guy making (rockets && green cars && batteries && solar && ...) to fail so badly? The guy smokes weed once on camera, now he's a witch and needs to be hunted down? We care abou…

I certainly don't want Tesla or SpaceX to fail. Nor do I want Elon to fail however he screwed up big time as the CEO of a major, public corporation and should be held accountable like everyone else. Celebrities, even ones trying to make the world a better place, shouldn't get a pass. My personal opinion is Elon should find someone to run Tesla. He proved good electric cars can be built, but now we need someone to tur…

Will Tesla (their share price) even survive Elon not being in charge?

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

#773

Post by Cthulhu_ »

_Microft wrote: post #684
anonytrary wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon Musk has always had a disdain for the responsibility of running a public company, it seems perfectly reasonable that he tweet, in exasperation, that he wishes to make the company private. Why do so many people in this thread want the only guy making (rockets && green cars && batteries && solar && ...) to fail so badly? The guy smokes weed once on camera, now he's a witch and needs to be hunted down? We care abou…

Why they want him to fail badly? They're maliciously envious - which is the product of an overly good self-image colliding with reality. They wish him harm because if he fails, he'll no longer remind them that that's how it looks like to actually achieve something.

Who are "they"? Anyway I can think of two parties: short sellers, who actively bet on Tesla shares losing value - and who are very likely behind all the negative press about Tesla, including making sure every accident a Tesla ends up in (especially if it's down to autopilot or involves fire or a death) stays in the news for weeks if possible.

The other would be competing car makers, who only now are starting to realize that electric cars are the future, except they're 5-10 years behind Tesla. I'm sure they'll catch up soon enough, given how they're much better at mass production than Tesla is atm, but they're way behind. Tesla will probably pivot to focus on their other endeavours - batteries (building the largest battery factory in the world), charging stations (building the largest charging station network in the world), green energy (solar panels and large scale battery storage), etc.

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

#774

Post by tinkerteller »

browsercoin wrote: post #69

I'm perplexed how Musk could act without thinking of the consequences? Now I fear that he will be banned from SpaceX as well, when you are convicted of fraud by SEC, it will impact your duties at other companies. It takes decades to build a reputation but it can be destroyed overnight with a single tweet.

The guy hasn't been sleeping and short sellers had essentially all but cornered him to the extent he would go bankrupt. I don't blame him too much except that he hasn't got his #2 with whom he can vent out, calm down and strategize. Gates had Ballmer, Page has Brin, Zuck has Sanders. Who does Musk has? Not acquiring #2 is his single biggest failure.

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

#775

Post by tinkerteller »

romed wrote: post #178

As I said nine days ago in this box and was roundly downvoted therefor: "Good chance that Musk will get placed on the bad actors list and will be unable to serve as an officer or executive of Telsa." What I don't understand is how this took 10% of the price of Tesla shares. How is it possible that this event, which was a 100% certainty, was not already baked into the price?

Almost everyone except you has been surprised so that should give you a clue. The Bayesian probabilities are all relative :). If you did believed 100% then you should have shorted the hell out of that stock. But you didn't so my guess is that even for you it was more like 90%.

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

#776

Post by Mirioron »

jacquesm wrote: post #679
usaphp wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the guy literally built a fucking reusable rocket company, most popular payment service, an electric car company that now all of the huge car monopolies are trying to mimic and replicate and still can’t catch, and he did all of that during 20 years, 99.9% of people sit on a couch for 20 years without doing anything. But experts on hacker news still think he is a terrible ceo. I am pretty sure most of those experts…

I suggest you re-read the headline. Elon is fantastic in some ways and terrible in others. He really needs to - quickly - get some self control or it will end badly. What do you think are the chances of Gwynne Shotwell tweeting SpaceX into the gutter or wrecking its reputation by getting into a tiff with a guy trying to rescue a bunch of kids?

>What do you think are the chances of Gwynne Shotwell tweeting SpaceX into the gutter or wrecking its reputation by getting into a tiff with a guy trying to rescue a bunch of kids?

Low, but we also know that the chances of her starting a company like SpaceX wouldn't have been nearly as high either since she didn't.

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

#777

Post by tinkerteller »

rst wrote: post #566
jiveturkey wrote: post #319

Page 21: "Prayer for Relief" interesting that this kind of language is accepted legalese par. 80.IV and 80.V seeks both civil penalties and removal from office. Is it feasible that Musk/Tesla can negotiate only penalties, thus keeping him on the board? Given Musk's position of power over the board, and importance to the company, I could see the board agreeing to it, but would the government.

Per WSJ reporting, they already had negotiated some sort of settlement, presumably with milder action toward all concerned, and then the Tesla side blew up the deal at the last minute, resulting in the SEC's hurried drafting and filing of the complaint we have now. As a procedural matter, they probably could still settle the case if both sides agreed to do that. But the best deal Tesla could get now is almost certain…

It's not going to be open-and-shut if for whatever magical reasons Saudis come back and decide to corroborate on Musk's statement.

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

#778

Post by sobani »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #155
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.

Shorts don't affect the stock the price that way. They profit if the price goes down, sure. And lots of short interest might make people more likely to sell, which will drive the price down, but just shorting a stock doesn't have much effect on the price.

Shorting is selling a stock. Selling a stock lowers its price.

The way shorting works is Alice lends a stock from Bob and gives him a small compensation for that. Then Alice sells that stock she lend. Somewhere in the future Alice will buy the stock and give it back to Bob.

If the price goes up enouogh, Alice will (be forced to) cut her losses. For this she has to buy a stock, which will increase the price further. This can lead to a so called 'short squeeze' when shorters Carol and Dave also (are forced to) cut their losses, driving the price up even further.

Right now >28% the TSLA float is sold short[0]. That must have an impact on the price. Also should a TSLA short squeeze ever happen, that's going to be epic. There will be enough Tesla believers that it's probable going to be hard to find that 28% for anything close to reasonable prices.

[0] https://www.gurufocus.com/term/ShortPercentageOfFloat/NAS:TS...

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

#779

Post by tinkerteller »

chollida1 wrote: post #6

This comment I made a few weeks ago is coming alot closer to the truth than I would have expected. I hope for Space X and Tesla's sake that the reports of a directory and Executive ban don't come true. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18016250#18016292 SpaceX is doing well, Tesla has pulled itself back from the brink and may actually become a profitable car company. All Elon had to do was keep his head down and n…

Personally I don't Musk had a choice. If he didn't do what he did then very likely Tesla would be bankrupt by now because of its debt obligations + short sellers. The short sellers counted on it. The choices he faced were go bankrupt and lose company or do this risky move and hope SEC lets you go with slap on the wrist.

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

#780

Post by sobani »

eli wrote: post #465
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shorting a stock means borrowing shares and selling them (making the seller short of shares they still owe). This puts the shares back on the market and absorbs purchasing demand. By supply and demand the price goes down. Regardless of any change in public sentiment or incentives to publicize dirt, at scale shorting a stock inherently reduces the price while the short positions are open.

In practice, at the scale of short selling actually taking place, does it materially impact the price of Tesla shares? Is there even any way to know? Seems like a boogeyman to blame all manner of company ills on. For example, I think very few of the negative press Tesla has received over e.g. union busting or manufacturing defects is due to a short seller conspiracy. That's newsworthy stuff and the media is doing its…

> In practice, at the scale of short selling actually taking place, does it materially impact the price of Tesla shares? Is there even any way to know?

Right now >28% the TSLA float is sold short[0]. I can't imagine that not have an impact on the price.

[0] https://www.gurufocus.com/term/ShortPercentageOfFloat/NAS:TS...

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