The full title is ‘“HE’S FULL OF SHIT”: HOW ELON MUSK FOOLED INVESTORS, BILKED TAXPAYERS, AND GAMBLED TESLA TO SAVE SOLARCITY’. Makes me wonder are we in the middle of yet another Tesla shorting cycle. Buy some shorts, trash Tesla in the media, wait for stock to drop, then cashout.
Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity
271–280 of 282 posts
Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity
#272The 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…
@docker_up: "Shareholders definitely have a great chance to sue Musk"
Your concern for the shareholders is duely noted :]
Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity
#273Earlier quoted context omitted.
SpaceX's stated goal is "occupy Mars". Being able to land and deploy solar panels at scale is essential to this goal. And Musk has learned the hard way not to trust third party suppliers that he doesn't control. SpaceX's aspirational goal is to launch something Mars-wards in the 2022 window to identify where the base will be and have some resources. Then send several vehicles and a few people in 2025 to set up a miss…
SpaceX's stated goal is "occupy Mars". Being able to land and deploy solar panels at scale is essential to this goal. And Musk has learned the hard way not to trust third party suppliers that he doesn't control That gave me the best laugh I've had all day. Bravo! Is SolarCity going to send installers to Mars in Teslas launched on top of a Falcon Heavy?
More likely on top of the Super Heavy + Starship, but yes. All of Musk's initiatives are centered around the Mars goal:
Tesla: Transportation on Mars and power (battery-tech).
SolarCity: Power on Mars
Boring Company: Automated tunneling, important for building habitats, cheap radiation shielding.
SpaceX: To get there
Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity
#274Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've always liked the idea of a low-gravity forge: mixing metals on Earth is difficult because the heavier metals separate from the lighter metals due to gravity. This wouldn't happen in low-gravity situations, so you can truly make "space metals" that cannot be manufactured on Earth. However, this only calls for a LEO (low earth orbit) colony, not really a mars colony. Even then, shipping raw material up to LEO is s…
Interesting. If we can manufacture rocket fuel and forge these 'space alloys' on Mars (or in LMO, low mars orbit), the transport cost to get those alloys to Earth could be theoretically much lower once you have a stable, relatively automated Mars base.
Why make a space forge on Low-Mars-orbit when we can make a space forge in Low Earth Orbit for far cheaper?
That's the thing about all of this "Mars" discussion. There's almost nothing to be gained doing things on Mars instead of Earth.
Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity
#275Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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. They voted for the merger based on Musk's claim that SolarCity had a good financial position and that they were releasing a revolutionary solar shingle product. Both of those were wrong.
> They voted for the merger based on Musk's claim that SolarCity had a good financial position and that they were releasing a revolutionary solar shingle product. Both of those were wrong. Well, if the arguments at the time were good enough to convince them, sucks to be them. What are they gonna do? Unless they were given tampered numbers or false factual information, Musk could oversell SolarCity prospects six ways…
> Well, if the arguments at the time were good enough to convince them, sucks to be them. What are they gonna do?
If the arguments and timelines were knowingly dishonest, then that's fraud. Hence the lawsuit.
> Unless they were given tampered numbers or false factual information, Musk could oversell SolarCity prospects six ways from Sunday and they can't do anything about it.
If you release a fake product on stage and announce timelines you know there is no possibility of meeting, then yeah, there are a lot of legal ramifications to that. Especially given a case where there are so many personal financial entanglements.
Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm talking about the economics and moat that Tesla has itself, with which the fact that the panels are a commodity matter a great deal. This makes Tesla a servicing/financing company, and why do they have a systematic advantage at that over competition? That doesn't seem like a high margin business that is going to justify Tesla's lofty valuation (especially when their solar installations have gone down close to ~90…
One advantage they have is that they try and pre-assemble systems into fixed 4 kw systems that are easier to put together on site Another advantage they have is a very simple online ordering system -- try getting a quote for solar somewhere else vs ordering on Tesla.com another advantage they have is asthetics and also integration with the same app you use to control your car
> Another advantage they have is a very simple online ordering system -- try getting a quote for solar somewhere else vs ordering on Tesla.com
Is this really a long term advantage? One, producing a website to have simple online ordering is not a problem for any company on this sort of scale, and two, how big an advantage is this? This isn't a sort of purchase on a whim like a new book on Amazon, these are long term planning decisions for a given family.
They're going to do the math and figure out what might actually be best for their electricity usage, home, and financial situation. Simple ordering isn't that huge of an advantage.
> another advantage they have is asthetics
Again, why is this something not easily copied?
> and also integration with the same app you use to control your car
Is this really that big an advantage? I don't know who is making multi-thousand dollar a year decisions based on this.
Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity
#277Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is a healthy margin on every car they sell. They just invested so much that they are still not making a profit. The way I'm reading it is that they can make a profit if they sell them at 45k, but they rather sell them at 35k to sell MORE. Expansion has a cost, and it's the reason why they're not making a profit.
No, the point is they are currently not selling any at $35k. They are filling the high-end orders first, hoping that they can do $35k profitably in the end.
You can walk in to a Tesla store and buy the $35k car today. It's just not for sale on their web site.
Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity
#278This bit seems pretty damning: > As SolarCity struggled to raise money from institutional investors, it began offering individuals a chance to buy what it called Solar Bonds. (“Now you can get paid while driving the solar revolution,” the marketing material said.) But there were few takers—so other parts of the Musk empire took up the slack. According to the shareholder lawsuit, SpaceX acquired $255 million of the bo…
SpaceX's stated goal is "occupy Mars". Being able to land and deploy solar panels at scale is essential to this goal. And Musk has learned the hard way not to trust third party suppliers that he doesn't control. SpaceX's aspirational goal is to launch something Mars-wards in the 2022 window to identify where the base will be and have some resources. Then send several vehicles and a few people in 2025 to set up a miss…
Seriously? Space solar is all multijunction, a totally different, far more expensive product than single-junction consumer cells. (Multiple junction cells have a higher conversion efficiency than single junction cells, so they're smaller and lighter, but they cost 10-100x more, since they're a low volume specialty product)
Solar city, if it ever actually made solar panels, would never make multi-junction ones.
Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe Musk will be proven right in time but having followed Tesla for a long time and having recently purchased a Model 3 (It's an incredible car). The Solar City purchase is the one thing that never made a lot of sense to me. Even if you start from the premise that it makes sense for Tesla to be in the solar business, it's hard to rationalize that the best way to break into that market was to buy a debt laden solar…
Electric cars are not much greener than normal cars if they use electricity produced in coal plants. I think it makes a lot of sense to push for solar power when you are in the electric car business. Without renewable energy they are really not that green after all.
Who cares, I didn’t buy it to be “green”. If it becomes economically viable power suppliers will transition to solar or whatever replaces coal eventually. It’s just a matter of when and what.
Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity
#280Earlier quoted context omitted.
OK, I should rephrase that. They are not losing money on every car. But they are still far from being profitable selling hundreds of thousands of $35k cars. According to the letter Musk himself posted in early January of 2019, he said they can squeeze out a tiny profit when selling the top end Model 3s at $45k+. And that they have a big effort ahead to make a profit selling $35k cars. This is a far cry away from a he…
There is a healthy margin on every car they sell. They just invested so much that they are still not making a profit. The way I'm reading it is that they can make a profit if they sell them at 45k, but they rather sell them at 35k to sell MORE. Expansion has a cost, and it's the reason why they're not making a profit.
Their reported ASP last quarter, Q2, on the model 3 was 50k.