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Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors

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31–40 of 358 posts

Re: Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors

#31

3 million shares. Am I doing the math wrong or is that somewhere in the ball park of 500M to 1B depending on when they were purchased? That's quite a display of confidence.

Yup, it's a billion-ish USD at today's price of about $332/share. That's about 3% of Larry's reported net worth.

Geez. Okay I didn't realise he was hyper rich. Well, I'm delighted for anyone to want to support electric cars.

Re: Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, this critque is more a critique on companies inside capitalism and it works when you remove all the Larry Elliot bashing and replace it with the word company: >There has been no entity in human history with less complexity or nuance to it than companies. >And I gotta say, as someone who has seen that complexity for my entire life, it's very hard to get used to that idea. It's like, 'surely this is more co…

Its unfortunate if you viewed Tesla as a game changer or a rising star. Bringing someone on with the character to marginalize all value for the quickest return, that might bother some. So if you were someone who wanted to give money to Tesla now you might think twice. This isn't about Oracle this is about Ellison.

Come to think of it that is indeed relevant and I completely skipped over that. I am bullish on Tesla and financially have skin in the game as well. So far Tesla has been quite volatile but I'm bullish on the long-term.

Re: Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors

#33

A lot of people seem negative about this. Can someone explain why? Are there any implications I should expect (as a Tesla owner and stockholder)?

See comment above comparing Ellison to an amoral lawnmower.

He's a corporate sociopath who focuses completely on squeezing the maximum possible revenue from customers by any means possible. This strategy often takes the form of threatening to sue customers after aggressive software audits. It seldom takes the form of trying to meet the customer's needs via good customer service or quality software.

Re: Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors

#34

The same guy who encouraged Elizabeth Holmes to ignore her engineers in favor of over the top promotion. Also a board member who failed (or chose not) to detect the underlying fraud... Every time I consider closing out my Tesla short position something like this happens and I get more confident that something is awry.

This guy built a company that services most of the data infrastructure of the world and pumps 15 billion of cash every year- but you remember him by what advice he gave to one person ; that just seems unfair.

Re: Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors

#35

A lot of people seem negative about this. Can someone explain why? Are there any implications I should expect (as a Tesla owner and stockholder)?

Well, it's sort of weird. He's never really been involved in a company that manufactures, i don't believe. Plus his legacy is that of maximizing licensing fees which isn't really in Tesla's wheelhouse given their history of opening patents.

Maybe he's being brought in to fight the right to repair and help lock down Tesla's to maximize some sort of dealer /service model?

Or maybe this is some sort of long play to get Tesla stuck on Oracle's platform :-)

Re: Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors

#37

Wow, what is he bringing to the table?

Hopefully about $30-50 per share in "market confidence" in the midst of a bear market. Otherwise Tesla probably goes bankrupt in March.

Even if they did, it doesn’t mean they’re going away.

GM went bankrupt in 2009, still here.

Re: Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors

#38
post #11
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Oracle is bad. No, I don't love or even like them. But quoting Bryan's dramatic speeches every time Oracle or Ellison are mentioned is adding next to nothing to the discussion at this point. It's a great way to incite anger though.

My point is that this doesn't bode well for Tesla. My biggest complaint with Tesla is that they don't provide service manuals or have an open parts department for their vehicles. For comparison, pretty much every other major auto maker will sell you a book telling you how to fix anything on your vehicle, and will sell you the parts and special tools to do so. Not Tesla, and given what we know about Ellison, I very mu…

Apple started the path to normalizing this, and I believe it's core to being responsible for the entire user experience. Personally, I'm not a fan of this, but I understand the motives aside from profit.

If a Tesla gets poor maintenance by an unskilled shop, when the vehicle crashes and kills the driver, Tesla gets the black eye and has to defend itself in the media and in front of the NHTSA. Tesla's stock takes the hit.

When a Mac crashes, it's because Apple's hardware or software has a bug (something in Apple's control). Apple doesn't have an open ecosystem like th.e PC world. When a PC crashes, you also have the hardware manufacturer to blame for faulty hardware. What about OS and other system customizations the manufacturer puts in there? Those coukd crash it too? All the public hears is "My Windows crashed." and Microsoft looks bad.

No fault is brought upon the consumer who thought a $220 PC was going to be a quality machine, not does it fall to the non-brand foreign bargain PC manufacturer for building a $220 that's doomed to provide an awful experience. Instead, the world hears that "Windows Sucks."

Given this, I appreciate why a company would opt to do the things Tesla has done in order to protect its brand. However, I try to avoid doing business with companies who do this, as I value consumer freedom.

Re: Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors

#39
post #5

"As you know people, as you learn about things, you realize that these generalizations we have are, virtually to a generalization, false. Well, except for this one, as it turns out. What you think of Oracle, is even truer than you think it is. There has been no entity in human history with less complexity or nuance to it than Oracle. And I gotta say, as someone who has seen that complexity for my entire life, it's ve…

Whenever I read this and the java guy Gosling they are incredibly negative about Oracle. One wonders if there is something behind all this as it appears they were figures of respect and authority at their previous company. But upon being consumed by Oracle was that still the case? I get the impression that there is underlying bitterness and resentment festering here due to something like that.
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