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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

#101

Post by geezerjay »

dragosmocrii wrote: post #85
imhoguy wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Curious note I found while trying to validate your claim that current stock price is bargain: if you look at the stock price on Google for the past 5 days, the graph looks like a neural network tried to reproduce Tesla's logo. Going back to your claim, I dont think a current price of $300 per share is bargain. But with his current behaviour, I can see that happening in the near future.

> Going back to your claim, I dont think a current price of $300 per share is bargain.

Just to drive the point home: what's Tesla's dividend per share?

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

#102

Post by JoshCole »

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,…

Yeah, the shorty meme brigade with their 'short air force' patch meme campaign convincing the New York Times to run a ridiculous story about cars parked in a parking lot is also very interesting.

We live in a post-IRA revelation world.

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

#103

Post by kmmlng »

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,…

I think part of the answer might be that Germans invest much less than most other nationalities. They do save, but in times of practically non-existent interest rates, that does not get you very far.

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

#104

Post by jnurmine »

Clomez wrote: post #63
nikofeyn wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

but manufacturing entirely new type of car? somebody gotta take the hit of being the first (most of the time, failing) one to try to do it on this scale. It's the only way forward. I think old and steady auto manufacturers are too stagnant to ever try their hand at such a risky but needed move.

Is it really so? They are not the only one, nor were they the first either, really. Yes, in some areas they were first on the market.

Many of the major ("old, boring") car manufacturers are growing on the EV segment and will overtake Tesla soon if not already there. For example, BMW i3 has sold around 100k units now, about a third of Teslas. Overall the market is dominated by the Chinese manufacturers.

Tesla got where they are because of the media skills and connections of Mr. Musk and the media amplification that follows. With Mr. Musk gone I see rather dire times for Tesla as a company, regardless of whether the company is sold to someone or not.

Full disclosure: have never driven a Tesla but have seen it zoom to a tiny dot in the horizon in a really short time when the traffic lights turned green.

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

#105

Post by geezerjay »

GW150914 wrote: post #25
cperciva wrote: post #24

Is Elon Musk really an asset that Tesla needs to hold onto? I'll admit that he's a great salesman; but he's also a spoiled child who throws tantrums when he doesn't get his way. If Tesla wants to be taken seriously as a car company -- rather than as a maker of toys for people who have too much money on their hands -- they might well be better off calling his bluff.

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…

> he is the focus for a cult of personality that has made Tesla what it is

I disagree. What made Tesla what it is was the ability to design and bring to the market an electric car that people wanted to buy and actually prefered over equivalent ICE offerings, and pulling this off while competing against one of the most competitive and entrenched global industries.

They promised and they delivered. That's what made Tesla what it is.

Everything else is just self-promotion and actually erodes Tesla's accomplishments and goodwill.

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

#106

Post by bsder »

Animats wrote: post #75

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 bee…

> 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.

Except that part of Tesla's funding is the preorder cash.

If Musk goes and 50% of the preorders cancel and demand their money back, Tesla pretty much shuts down, no?

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

#107

Post by kjksf »

redthrowaway wrote: post #77
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…

Steve Jobs stole $5k from his best friend Steve Wozniak https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/steve-wozniak-cried-jobs-kept-atar...

He denied, for many years, that he was a father of his daughter and, while a millionaire, didn't support his daughter or her mother financially.

He was investigated by SEC for, wait for it, securities fraud (stock options backdating including his 7.5 million stock options). He wasn't charged. His CFO and General Counsel weren't so lucky. https://www.cnet.com/news/how-jobs-dodged-the-stock-option-b...

He certainly was an actual frequent drug user, not a one time marijuana puffer.

And many more https://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-jerk-2011-10#ever...

This is not to say that one jerk justifies another but to point the power of narrative.

Musk has already achieved more than Jobs (I put creating 5 companies and dominating fricking space industry, from nothing, in less than 2 decades a bit higher than overseeing development of iPod and iPhone).

But make a few mis-steps on twitter, report it nationally by click hungry press and suddenly he's irresponsible, reckless, drug addicted man child who has to be reigned in by adults.

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

#109

Post by mantas »

kjksf wrote: post #107
redthrowaway wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Steve Jobs stole $5k from his best friend Steve Wozniak https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/steve-wozniak-cried-jobs-kept-atar... He denied, for many years, that he was a father of his daughter and, while a millionaire, didn't support his daughter or her mother financially. He was investigated by SEC for, wait for it, securities fraud (stock options backdating including his 7.5 million stock options). He wasn't charged. His CF…

Did Musk created his rocket all by himself? Or did he merely overseen the development?

Also, Jobs did far more than iPod/iPhone. Both in Apple and in his other companies.

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

#110

Post by Flenser »

nordsieck wrote: post #83
bicubic wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have SpaceX shares? How?

> You have SpaceX shares? How? Presumably he work(s|ed) there.

There is a Paul Sutter at SpaceX: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-sutter-csp-44270370/

But I think it's actually this Paul Sutter: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sutter/

based on these comments:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&prefix&page=0&sort=byD...

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&prefix=false&page=0&so...

So we're talking VC amounts equity, not employee stock.

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