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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

#851
post #736

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

>clearly know This is clearly your opinion..

Read the linked WSJ article. He tweeted before there was even an offer on the table.

This is the Musk apologizing I'm talking about.

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

#852

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People keep saying this, and it makes very little sense. The Tesla that he "didn't found" was a boutique outfit formed to modify another company's obscure sports car to make it run on batteries. That company no longer exists in any sense beyond the name on the business license. The Tesla that exists now is indisputably there because of Musk's ambition, willpower, and engineering instincts, for better or worse.

I'm actually confused. By "another company's obscure sports car " I assume you're referring to the Lotus Elise - arguably one of the world's better known and more successful sports cars.

Not in the US, it isn't.

In any case, the point still stands.

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

#853

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm ignorant of the practical aspects here: aren't shorts self-fulfilling eventually if the people taking this positions are powerful enough? If I'm long on Tesla, then I lend my shares for someone and the shares happen to fall at all (normal market variations) then I lost money. If I see more short orders then surely I'm going to get antsy, move to "a more stable share", pushing the price down a little, making some…

If you see vultures circling a dying or dead animal, does it mean they killed it? The vultures show up when something is dying or dead. TSLAs financials have been a disaster for a long time. Its stock price has been completely disconnected from reality for a long time. Musk/TSLA fans have buoyed the stock price, but people are starting to realize that even if the TSLA car is nice it doesn't mean it's a good company.…

It was intended to be more of a general question on shorting, but thank you for your analysis - I shall cogitate on it; I'd certainly agree Tesla has problems.

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

#854

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm British so I also take offense to this (how very dare you!) but I'm assuming this was written from a US-centric point of view. The Elise and Exige may have been fairly common this side of the pond but I get the impression they're very rare outside of the UK.

No more rare than any other sports car. I’ve seen more on the streets here in the middle of the country than I have seen of nissan gtrs.

Lotus's best sales year in the US was 2007, with about 3,000 sold across all models including the Elise. That year, the Corvette alone sold 33000 units.

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

#855
post #806

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I really hate this idea of the grand visionary. Which is amusing in the case of Musk. As I've said over and over, his approach is to find an industry where most or all of the hard, expensive fundamental R&D has already been done (and paid for) by someone else, and then start a company to incrementally improve it and promise vast cost reductions from economies of scale. That's what SpaceX is. That's what Tesla is. The…

If it's that easy why didn't you do it then? We should have plenty of competitors to SpaceX and Tesla with loads of reusable rockets and amazing self driving cars RIGHT NOW if everything seems so trivial in your opinion. Any dumbass can do it, including you! Time to get dirty and stack up on those millions of $ since things are so easy to pull off. That's why Elon sleeps under the desk and works 18 hours a day becaus…

There's a difference between:

"This is not the revolutionary act of genius people portray it as"

and

"This is so trivially easy anyone could do it"

Tesla and SpaceX are trying to do things that have potential utility. Things which will advance the state of their respective arts even if they fail. There is no shame in "merely" doing that! There's also no need to inflate it into something it isn't.

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

#856

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the length that some HN commenters will go to to tear down people like Elon I suppose if you read literally anything other than absolutely fawning worship of Elon Musk as history's most titanic genius as a "tear down", I could see that. But... it is absolutely true that his business model is incremental improvements + economies of scale. Tesla and SpaceX aren't in the business of inventing fundamentally new things. T…

We're clearly talking past each other and we may have to agree to disagree. You didn't address my question at all, just restated your comment and implied that I'm a fanboy if I disagree. "Absolutely fawning worship" is unnecessary hyperbole, there is a vast amount of middle ground between that and your position. But I suppose if you can't make a reasoned argument, you have to resort to that (and we're off to the ad h…

Would you agree that SpaceX and Tesla are not inventing any fundamentally new technology? That they are engaged in evolutionary, rather than revolutionary, work?

One can say "this is not a revolutionary thing" without simultaneously saying "this is utterly worthless". Avoiding the hero worship and the personality cult does not require throwing out any idea of useful things coming from SpaceX or Tesla.

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

#857

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'm in the same camp. I'm going to be happy if at the end of this we've managed to get a better (cleaner, safer, more reliable, cheaper) car or a better rocket or whatever, but I don't buy the whole "rocket jesus" worshipping, like I don't buy the whole guru worshipping in startup culture in general.

I don’t understand what’s so unusual that there would be Jesuses walking around. Like a billion people are trying to imitate Jesus. Also we have the benefit of centuries of reflection in his teachings.

I would expect there to be dozens of Jesuses. Rocket Jesus. Pizza Jesus. Star Wars Jesus. Etc.

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

#858

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So you want to say if you can understand, can discuss with engineer leeds, can make a decision and accept or decline a solutions to the problem which your company is making, you're not involved in the development work?

Not in the sense that he is doing active development work.

Would you call it passive?

You still need to understand all the details. You just didn’t necessarily need to do the grinding on iterations, schematics, math, etc.

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

#859

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk does not do any engineering at all.

I posted a source. Can you?

You have no source. All you did is claim that Elon read some books.

Elon Musk is not an engineer and does not do any engineering at Tesla.

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

#860
Interesting legal point, does Musk have any legal duty to the Tesla shorts? If I'm not mistaken they don't officially own the shares they short so I'm thinking not.

On the other hand if the "shorts" are actively working against the interests of "long" holders of Tesla stock and Musk works against their interests (but in the interests of shareholders) how can that run afoul of the rules?

Not a lawyer so it may not be as black and white as this but I would interested to hear from those that are familiar with legal precedents on this issue.

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