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Is Elon Musk trying to commit ‘suicide by SEC’ by taunting the agency?

latimes.com

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Re: Is Elon Musk trying to commit ‘suicide by SEC’ by taunting the agency?

#151

Post by 11thEarlOfMar »

mikejb wrote: post #92
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #88

It's pretty simple. Musk was hounded by short sellers who bet billions against Tesla and then spread patently false information about the company's activities and prospects[1]. Musk has one of those asymmetric senses of fairness (like the one that drove Gates to tears during Microsoft's anti-trust trials) that lost all faith in the SEC as it stood by and did nothing about what he felt was clearly illegal behavior. In…

Just as a heads-up: Your 2nd link doesn't work for anybody but you (references a file on your local machine), and leaks your user name on that machine. Maybe this is the link you wanted to post (contains the quote you posted): https://www.dlapiper.com/~/media/files/people/weiner-perrie/...

Thank you.

Re: Is Elon Musk trying to commit ‘suicide by SEC’ by taunting the agency?

#152

Post by ceejayoz »

elliekelly wrote: post #100
ceejayoz wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Musk paid the SEC $20m in his last settlement, what do they want, gratitude? They want him to follow the other terms of the settlement, presumably. The fine's only a part of the punishment.

But it (aside from the $20 million fine) it isn’t even a punishment . Every publicly-traded company has their tweets reviewed. Every. Single. One. It’s normal . It’s reasonably prudent for both the CEO and the shareholders. No shareholder wants to wake up and find 5%+ of market cap has been wiped out with a tweet.

Don't forget that he was forced to step down as Tesla's Chairman.

That the SEC settlement required Musk to hire a lawyer and institute a review process indicates that at least one publicly-trated company wasn't having tweets reviewed, and the SEC complaint this time around alleges this tweet wasn't reviewed either.

Re: Is Elon Musk trying to commit ‘suicide by SEC’ by taunting the agency?

#153

Post by ceejayoz »

kamaal wrote: post #144
elliekelly wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s no such thing as “FU money” with the SEC though. They can bar him from serving in any fiduciary capacity on behalf of any company under their jurisdiction. For life. Musk is playing with fire.

>>They can bar him from serving in any fiduciary capacity on behalf of any company under their jurisdiction. Seems like a nice idea to encourage him to start a car company some where in Germany. Also the fact that over zealous prosecutors go after industrialists won't exactly motivate(more like scare away) people wanting to start companies. Sometimes you must opt not to fight a few contests. The fact that you can win…

Is there any reason to believe Germany's version of the SEC wouldn't have similar issues with this sort of behavior?

Re: Is Elon Musk trying to commit ‘suicide by SEC’ by taunting the agency?

#154

Post by justin66 »

lisper wrote: post #78
travisoneill1 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If EV's do take off, it's likely to be the established car manufacturers who are good at making cars at scale who eventually capitalize on the opportunity. This is what I used to think, but every year the "Tesla killers" fail to kill, or even wound. I never even hear about the other EV's by themselves, only as the competition to Tesla. Anybody who watches the news would have known that the Model 3 was a colossal fa…

> every year the "Tesla killers" fail to kill, or even wound That's true, but I think it's because of bad marketing rather than bad technology. The Chevy Bolt has the specs to beat the Model 3, but it is being positioned as a low-end car, a competitor to the Honda Civic rather than the Model 3. Power seats, for example, are not even offered as an option. That is not a car a rich person is going to buy to impress thei…

> But GM could easily turn it into such a car.

Almost any car company could, which is interesting. The entire powertrain and infotainment system are manufactured by LG Chem and sold as an integrated package.

GM made it into a minimum viable product, and since they're GM, it's pretty meh. It would be interesting to see what Hyundai or Kia would do with the same tech.

Re: Is Elon Musk trying to commit ‘suicide by SEC’ by taunting the agency?

#155

Post by AtlasBarfed »

computerex wrote: post #107
travisoneill1 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If EV's do take off, it's likely to be the established car manufacturers who are good at making cars at scale who eventually capitalize on the opportunity. This is what I used to think, but every year the "Tesla killers" fail to kill, or even wound. I never even hear about the other EV's by themselves, only as the competition to Tesla. Anybody who watches the news would have known that the Model 3 was a colossal fa…

> This is what I used to think, but every year the "Tesla killers" fail to kill, or even wound. The "Tesla killers" have been sleeping, but they are about to wake up. No doubt Tesla jump started the market, but the other manufacturers have decades of experience. On top of that, no other car maker has the problems that Tesla does due to its CEO and his inability to stop tweeting. Whilst Tesla had a start start, it fel…

- with what supply of batteries? They'll always be behind Tesla without the gigafactory

- how will they sell them? Dealerships are 100% hostile to EVs, they won't bring in the maintenance business

- Oh, you think the giants are good at customer service? The only difference in complaints in your example is that dealer networks distribute the dissatisfaction, but Tesla forums get all of them

Re: Is Elon Musk trying to commit ‘suicide by SEC’ by taunting the agency?

#156

Post by travisoneill1 »

lisper wrote: post #116
colordrops wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Chevy Bolt has the specs to beat the Model 3 Really? What specifications? The Model 3 is better in pretty much every way in every comparison I've ever seen, including specs directly from the manufacturer websites.

Let me rephrase that. The Bolt has the specs to be what the Model 3 promised to be but isn't: a practical all-electric car with reasonable range at a <$40k MSRP.

The model 3 starts at $44K. They are $4000 away from doing that. I would bet that it drops below $40K by the end of the year.

Re: Is Elon Musk trying to commit ‘suicide by SEC’ by taunting the agency?

#157

Post by vvillena »

appsonify wrote: post #36
Despegar wrote: post #8

>Of more concern to Tesla investors: What if he knows something they don’t know about the company’s financial future — and is hoping to hang any failure on the nasty, overreaching regulators rather than his own dubious management skills? That seems very possible. I think the reality of scaling up Tesla to live up to its valuation might be too daunting for Elon to handle. It might even be impossible. EV sales as a % o…

I agree, that Musk is hiding something, one that would seriously hamper his reputation. I think it might have to do something with the Solar City acquisition. He doesn't want to admit he fucked up and failed because it would cast doubt on all his other half-baked ideas. Tesla will definitely feel the pressure from other car manufacturers, but so far it has nothing much to worry about as the only really viable game ch…

It's a shame there's no love for small cars in America. Renault-Nissan applied the lessons learned with the Leaf to a subcompact, the Renault Zoe, and it's a great car.

Re: Is Elon Musk trying to commit ‘suicide by SEC’ by taunting the agency?

#158

Post by mcv »

Despegar wrote: post #8

>Of more concern to Tesla investors: What if he knows something they don’t know about the company’s financial future — and is hoping to hang any failure on the nasty, overreaching regulators rather than his own dubious management skills? That seems very possible. I think the reality of scaling up Tesla to live up to its valuation might be too daunting for Elon to handle. It might even be impossible. EV sales as a % o…

> If EV's do take off, it's likely to be the established car manufacturers

But Elon Musk has said that that's what he wants. He doesn't want Tesla to win, he wants EVs to win. That's one of the things I admire about him.

But be acting flaky and irresponsible, and picking stupid fights, he's undermining people's confidence in Elon Musk, which reflects on his companies, and possibly on his product: EVs. I think it would be much better for his companies and for EVs in general if he ran his companies in a responsible and reliable manner, and he didn't pick stupid fights.

Re: Is Elon Musk trying to commit ‘suicide by SEC’ by taunting the agency?

#159

Post by travisoneill1 »

lisper wrote: post #78
travisoneill1 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If EV's do take off, it's likely to be the established car manufacturers who are good at making cars at scale who eventually capitalize on the opportunity. This is what I used to think, but every year the "Tesla killers" fail to kill, or even wound. I never even hear about the other EV's by themselves, only as the competition to Tesla. Anybody who watches the news would have known that the Model 3 was a colossal fa…

> every year the "Tesla killers" fail to kill, or even wound That's true, but I think it's because of bad marketing rather than bad technology. The Chevy Bolt has the specs to beat the Model 3, but it is being positioned as a low-end car, a competitor to the Honda Civic rather than the Model 3. Power seats, for example, are not even offered as an option. That is not a car a rich person is going to buy to impress thei…

Yes I think you're right, but that may be an even harder gap to close than tech.

Good Marketing: Crazy genius CEO who is always in the news, builds rockets in his spare time, launches his car into space, smokes weed with Joe Rogan, and constantly thumbs his nose at the authorities. Customers like this company so much that the CEO can ask for volunteers and actually get a response. $0 advertising budget. All marketing by word of mouth. Direct to consumer sales with transparent pricing.

Bad Marketing: Standard car company. Nobody even knows the CEO's name, and he only speaks publicly in boring prepared statements run through a huge PR team. Massive advertising budget producing totally boring car ads that are indistinguishable from other companies. Sold through dealerships and sketchy salesmen who negotiate a different price for each customer.

I can see the big companies beating Tesla on tech a lot more than I can see them becoming like Tesla as a brand.

Re: Is Elon Musk trying to commit ‘suicide by SEC’ by taunting the agency?

#160

Post by mcv »

rejschaap wrote: post #125
JauntTrooper wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not oblivious. He's being obstinate and bristling at their authority. He's been CEO of a public Tesla for 9 years now. Respecting the SEC and securities laws is just part of the CEO job. He's got great lawyers that remind him of this daily. And you'd think the $20 million fine and loss of the Chairman role would be enough of a wake up call. It's so frustrating to see, because I really want Tesla to succeed and I…

> Respecting the SEC and securities laws He should respect the law, as in abide the law. But should he really show respect, as in deep admiration to the law or the commission? I know America is not the land of the free it used to be, but it is not a totalitarian state yet.

It's a stupid fight to pick. He doesn't have to like the SEC or the law, but they exist, and they exist for a good reason. If he wants Tesla to succeed, he can't ignore or deny that.

And although I love Elon Musk, the SEC is right; he shouldn't be twittering stupid things to temporarily boost his stock price. There's no gain for him in it, it's misleading, and it undermines long term trust in him and his company.

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