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Elon Musk’s Ultimatum to Tesla: Fight the S.E.C., or I Quit

nytimes.com

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Re: Elon Musk’s Ultimatum to Tesla: Fight the S.E.C., or I Quit

#71

Post by imhoguy »

dragosmocrii wrote: post #35

Personally, I think Elon Musk wants out of Tesla. The things he did lately, all point to this conclusion. Maybe he lost vision or interest in the company, but leaving from his own will would jeopardize the future of the company, since most of Tesla's backers are fans of him. Arranging himself an exit in this way, would make it look as he's the victim left with no choice but leave.

He is going to leave and do the promised buyout. The stock price is bargain. Tesla will be privately held company soon. My $0.02.

Re: Elon Musk’s Ultimatum to Tesla: Fight the S.E.C., or I Quit

#72

Post by Clomez »

dragosmocrii wrote: post #35

Personally, I think Elon Musk wants out of Tesla. The things he did lately, all point to this conclusion. Maybe he lost vision or interest in the company, but leaving from his own will would jeopardize the future of the company, since most of Tesla's backers are fans of him. Arranging himself an exit in this way, would make it look as he's the victim left with no choice but leave.

Am i right that Tesla is his first publicly traded company? Maybe the pressure of continuous spotlight on him + need to keep up with stable CEO status is wearing him down? I no way know him or am able to fully state this as a fact but i feel like lately he seems like he has been under huge pressures, and does not like it. Maybe he just likes to invent and engineer things. Like much worse version of innovative coder/engineer who's inspiration and moral is crushed by soul-eating-meetings day after day after day.

Re: Elon Musk’s Ultimatum to Tesla: Fight the S.E.C., or I Quit

#73

Post by bicubic »

paulsutter wrote: post #56

He approached it perfectly. I mean seriously, what’s the worst that could happen? He leaves and the company sells out to Apple? Sure, progress would slow but Apple wouldn’t bungle it. Meanwhile he would get to focus on the weightier innovation at SpaceX and The Boring Company (disclaimer, am a SpaceX shareholder and secretly this is exactly what I want)

You have SpaceX shares? How?

Re: Elon Musk’s Ultimatum to Tesla: Fight the S.E.C., or I Quit

#74

Post by AnthonyMouse »

adventured wrote: post #62
kilburn wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These net worth figures don't take into account the differences in social models. The average German has been paying more taxes for their entire life. In exchange, their net worth won't be affected if they get cancer, they will get help if they go broke, etc. Comparing net worth figures directly doesn't sound fair to me given these differences...

Your premise doesn't explain why France - which has a far more expensive welfare state than Germany - has a median net worth roughly three times that of Germany and Sweden. Or why Belgium is nearly 4x that of Germany. Or why Italy is 3x that of Germany. And so on. It's very clearly a problem that specifically has to do with Germany. Even South Korea, which has only started to become affluent in the last two decades,…

> It's very clearly a problem that specifically has to do with Germany.

It's not even a real problem, because the primary cause is that housing costs in Germany are much lower than they are in most other places. Correspondingly the homes people own aren't worth as much, but they don't care because they're using housing as a thing to live in instead of a thing to prop up their net worth on paper.

Re: Elon Musk’s Ultimatum to Tesla: Fight the S.E.C., or I Quit

#75

Post by Animats »

There used to be a sort of tradition that you started with the inexperienced startup CEO. Then, when the business became large, the board got someone with experience running a big company. That's changed in recent years. Page and Brin are back running Google, Jobs came back to Apple, and Zuckerberg is still in charge at Facebook.

On the other hand, Uber got rid of their startup guy and got a manager type, who has been getting their losses under control, and something similar happened at Twitter. In both cases, the company had operational problems and cost problems, but plenty of users/customers.

That's the Tesla situation. Product is OK. Customers are enthusiastic. Production is in trouble. Cost and labor hours per car are way too high. The financial situation isn't good. That's usually when the board and stockholders put in an operations-oriented CEO.

Re: Elon Musk’s Ultimatum to Tesla: Fight the S.E.C., or I Quit

#76

Post by kirillzubovsky »

nikofeyn wrote: post #46
Steel_Phoenix wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no shortage of boring automotive companies to invest in if that's what they want. Invest in Musk if you believe the future won't happen fast enough if you don't. A corporate board making all the decisions would have been long ago crushed by big oil or bigger manufacturers, or their patents bought and buried to continue the status-quo.

how is tesla the future? they are still figuring out how to reliably manufacture a very small number of stagnant models, whereas every other car manufacturer iterates on multiple models every year, and it all works like clockwork and yields very reliable and safe cars. my kia optima sxl is much less than 50% of a tesla and yet has a higher fit and finish and is more safe.

`every other car manufacturer iterates on multiple models every year` - that's not actually true. Every other manufacturer maintains the same base for their cars and simply swaps small details around to make it look like you are getting a different car. You are not actually getting anything radically different every year; not even every decade really.

Re: Elon Musk’s Ultimatum to Tesla: Fight the S.E.C., or I Quit

#77

Post by redthrowaway »

kirillzubovsky wrote: post #8

These articles about Elon are interesting to me because Tesla could not have become such a valuable car company in such a short time if it wasn't for Elon, and that includes his personality. Yet, many couch investors would prefer to have a CEO who is stable, boring and predictable. People want to put their money in for steady long-term returns, and not worry. Tesla is doing wild things which are causing crazy growth,…

I don't remember Steve Jobs calling random people pedophiles or committing a little light securities fraud while high.

Elon brings incredible value to his companies. He also brings incredible risk. The error his fans make is in assuming the two are inseparable--that you can't have the space visionary without the libel, or the automotive and energy revolutionary without the fraud.

I think this is a mistake. You could solve most of Elon's problems by giving someone the ability to preview his tweets before he sends them. I can't see how putting a broadcast delay on his twitter feed would stop him from building cars and rockets.

Re: Elon Musk’s Ultimatum to Tesla: Fight the S.E.C., or I Quit

#78

Post by JoshCole »

refurb wrote: post #23
olliej wrote: post #3

Ignoring everything else it does seem like he needs therapy of some kind, not for mental health reasons, but for learning to better control his impulsiveness. As to any of his other behaviors: ehn. I don’t have enough money to be effected by his antics :D

Didn’t his ex-gf mention he was on acid during the “funding secured” fiasco? I wonder if drugs are contributing to it.

No, she didn't.

Re: Elon Musk’s Ultimatum to Tesla: Fight the S.E.C., or I Quit

#79

Post by dang »

memer wrote: post #49
notaki wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, yeah, ok.

notaki? more like notaklue...

We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

Re: Elon Musk’s Ultimatum to Tesla: Fight the S.E.C., or I Quit

#80

Post by dang »

notaki wrote: post #31
GW150914 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla is facing the prospect of needing to sell a honking load of stock at a discount to deal with their debt, and to do that they need a high stock price. While Musk appears to be a liability in many areas, he is the focus for a cult of personality that has made Tesla what it is, and has shown incredible talent for inflating the price of Tesla’s stock on that basis. So while Tesla as a healthy company without crushi…

Uh, yeah, ok.

Would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News?
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