Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

vanityfair.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 282 posts

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#41

Post by patagonia »

danso wrote: post #37
patagonia wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A company that was founded based on his suggestion, with his financial and leadership support. He was there from day zero. Solar City is not just a solar cell company. It is a power generation and distribution company. Which clearly ties into charging electric cars. Another (very) common early criticism of Tesla: You’re just filling up with coal power. And. Risky for sure. Elon Musk obviously doesn’t shy from risky.…

> And. Risky for sure. Elon Musk obviously doesn’t shy from risky. He sets goals that solve existential problems. In this case, our reliance on fossil fuels. What is the relevance of these platitudes? Are they intended to be a catchall explanation/excuse for every time Musk makes an objectively terrible business decision? That we have to consider Musk cares so much about ending fossil fuels and factor that into the c…

It was literally an offhand comment speaking to a small portion of the preceding comment. And you manage to spend 3 paragraphs tearing apart my “logic”. Aren’t we supposed to “Assume good faith.”

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#42

Post by slavik81 »

jacquesm wrote: post #20

HN discussion at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11949434

A few highlights:

> unclebucknasty - Wow. Sounds like a huge shell game that Musk has set up among his companies. It's betting big, which should be expected from Musk, but it seems a bit odd to be so personally intertwined with public companies and making decisions accordingly. It also seems unduly burdensome to the companies in the "portfolio" which might otherwise perform well.

> a13n - Some people think SolarCity is doing terribly because they're losing so much money. Actually them losing money is an incredibly great sign for the long run (assuming they don't run out of money - which Elon won't let happen).

> partiallypro - The CEO is his cousin, but he has recused himself of voting on the deal. I doubt the SEC & FTC will care; Wall Street on the other hand, I think they all see what this is about.

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#43

Post by danso »

martythemaniak wrote: post #36

Well, Tesla is one long stream of gambles. You dont get to school an established, global, trillion dollar industry without taking risks. The only notable thing here is that hating on Musk is really popular these days. So the failed gambles (this, falcon doors, the initial overautomation of the Model 3 production, etc) will be highlighted and mocked, while the successful gambles will go unmentioned or incorporated as…

You read this story and think it boils down to "hating on Musk"? Which of the story's numbers or claims about SolarCity finances and production do you believe are distorted or misleading?

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#44

Post by mhermher »

docker_up wrote: post #18

The purchase of SolarCity by Tesla was the single dumbest thing Elon Musk did and it has dire consequences for Tesla the car company. Shareholders definitely have a great chance to sue Musk because he did not do this in the best interest of his shareholders, it's in the best interest of his cousin. Co-mingling all parts of his companies (SpaceX buying SolarCity Bonds) is a huge red flag that reeks of corporate malfea…

Not just his cousins (I doubt Musk actually cares about them), but himself personally. He personally held a bunch of SC bonds. Tesla shareholders footed the bill to bail out Musk himself and get him out of those terrible bonds.

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#45

Post by dragontamer »

docker_up wrote: post #18

The purchase of SolarCity by Tesla was the single dumbest thing Elon Musk did and it has dire consequences for Tesla the car company. Shareholders definitely have a great chance to sue Musk because he did not do this in the best interest of his shareholders, it's in the best interest of his cousin. Co-mingling all parts of his companies (SpaceX buying SolarCity Bonds) is a huge red flag that reeks of corporate malfea…

> The purchase of SolarCity by Tesla was the single dumbest thing Elon Musk did

Why was it a bad move for Elon Musk?

Elon Musk owned many SolarCity shares (in fact, Elon Musk was the chairman of SolarCity). If SolarCity would go bankrupt, Elon Musk would have lost a lot of money and power. Elon Musk saved SolarCity to save his own skin and money. Its not really that hard to imagine.

Now Tesla shareholders, who overwhelmingly voted for the merger, made a big mistake. But Tesla shareholders own the company, they are allowed to make whatever decisions they want.

Its definitely a sketchy move, but Elon Musk did it correctly. Elon Musk recused his voted, and left it up to shareholder vote. Tesla shareholders only have themselves to blame for this move.

EDIT: Even if you voted "no" and were overridden by all of your fellow shareholders, you had plenty of time to sell your Tesla shares to avoid this disaster. Tesla bought SolarCity back in 2016. Plenty of time to sell if you were keeping up with the news.

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#46

Post by amluto »

mikeash wrote: post #21
danso wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is SolarCity an exclusive, or otherwise prominent producer of the solar panels required for Tesla charging stations?

Solar panels aren’t required at all.

Not only are they not required, they aren’t present at any station I’ve seen.

Some supercharger stations do have an interesting thing: a big battery bank with a four-quadrant utility meter. I assume Tesla has come up with some clever billing arrangement that combines peak shaving, demand response, TOU arbitrage, and selling reactive power to minimize the cost of operating the station. Otherwise it makes little sense to me to collocate battery banks with superchargers.

The part I don’t understand is that Tesla’s stations seem to operate at 480V input. Utility rates are a bit lower if you buy power at “primary” voltage. Maybe Tesla doesn’t want to deal with the fact that primary voltage is different in different places?

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#47

Post by hi5eyes »

danso wrote: post #43
martythemaniak wrote: post #36

Well, Tesla is one long stream of gambles. You dont get to school an established, global, trillion dollar industry without taking risks. The only notable thing here is that hating on Musk is really popular these days. So the failed gambles (this, falcon doors, the initial overautomation of the Model 3 production, etc) will be highlighted and mocked, while the successful gambles will go unmentioned or incorporated as…

You read this story and think it boils down to "hating on Musk"? Which of the story's numbers or claims about SolarCity finances and production do you believe are distorted or misleading?

its difficult to critique tesla/elons decisions without running into the cult of teslemmings making it their personality of defending musk of any wrongdoing

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#48

Post by jsharf »

danso wrote: post #43
martythemaniak wrote: post #36

Well, Tesla is one long stream of gambles. You dont get to school an established, global, trillion dollar industry without taking risks. The only notable thing here is that hating on Musk is really popular these days. So the failed gambles (this, falcon doors, the initial overautomation of the Model 3 production, etc) will be highlighted and mocked, while the successful gambles will go unmentioned or incorporated as…

You read this story and think it boils down to "hating on Musk"? Which of the story's numbers or claims about SolarCity finances and production do you believe are distorted or misleading?

Perfectly true facts can still create bias, by selectively focusing attention. None of this needs to be wrong or distorted.

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#49

Post by whatok »

martythemaniak wrote: post #36

Well, Tesla is one long stream of gambles. You dont get to school an established, global, trillion dollar industry without taking risks. The only notable thing here is that hating on Musk is really popular these days. So the failed gambles (this, falcon doors, the initial overautomation of the Model 3 production, etc) will be highlighted and mocked, while the successful gambles will go unmentioned or incorporated as…

Please describe how this selection bias filter works.

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#50

Post by martythemaniak »

danso wrote: post #43
martythemaniak wrote: post #36

Well, Tesla is one long stream of gambles. You dont get to school an established, global, trillion dollar industry without taking risks. The only notable thing here is that hating on Musk is really popular these days. So the failed gambles (this, falcon doors, the initial overautomation of the Model 3 production, etc) will be highlighted and mocked, while the successful gambles will go unmentioned or incorporated as…

You read this story and think it boils down to "hating on Musk"? Which of the story's numbers or claims about SolarCity finances and production do you believe are distorted or misleading?

It's more of a meta comment on which stories surface up on Hacker News and other media. The selection of content you get exposed to can matter more than the exact content you consume.

I went for dinner to my in-laws a few months ago and my mother-in-law asked if I had heard about the Tesla that caught fire in Shanghai. I said, yeah but did you hear about all the combustion cars that had combusted that day. She had not of course. Didn't even know "normal" cars catch fire. Nothing against her in particular (she had seen it on a mainstream TV news program), I've had similar conversations with coworkers, aquiantances, on social media, etc.

Post reply on HN