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Everyone's reaction to this seems to be "He is crazy / paranoid". He gave very specific examples of things this person did. If you were someone with a large pos

Everyone's reaction to this seems to be "He is crazy / paranoid". He gave very specific examples of things this person did. If you were someone with a large position against Telsa, or a competing manufacturer, or an oil / gas company finally picking things up after a terrible oil price collapse, yeah maybe it makes sense to go mess things up subtly enough that the company slips a little bit closer to bankruptcy? I'm not saying I 100% believe this theory, but when you're working at this level as CEO I feel like you have to at least consider the possibility.

jcranmer 8y ago
From the standpoint of anyone trying to sabotage Tesla, the risk/reward ratio is extremely high. To claim that someone is trying to do so is an extraordinary claim, and we all know the saying about extraordinary claims...
- Jedd 8y ago
  > From the standpoint of anyone trying to sabotage Tesla, the risk/reward ratio is extremely high. Can you show your working in that calculation please? My understanding is that the reward / risk ratio is extremely high for more than a handful of obvious players.
  - kbenson 8y ago
    That was my initial reaction to that assessment as well. Normally the risk-reward ratio is high, but with the largest short position of the market (at some point inthe last couple months, possibly still currently) at above $10 billion, that's a lot of potential reward that might be capable of being paid out, even when we consider that much of it is small individual positions.
- omarforgotpwd 8y ago
  Elon says that the person claimed he did it because he didn't get a promotion he wanted. That's probably true because it would be the least extraordinary possibility. But it doesn't hurt to consider and prepare for extraordinary circumstances.
- FortNightLord 8y ago
  Uh it says the guy admitted to it...and gave reasons...a confession is more than enough evidence.
  - olivermarks 8y ago
    People at Tesla are working incredibly hard, they just had a FTE mass layoff and are relying heavily on 'associates'. This reminds me of the darker days at Zappos with their holocracy business model and all powerful vanity CEO. It's not hard to imagine the disgruntled moving fast and breaking things in frustration
    - d0mine 8y ago
      s/holocracy/holAcracy/
      - gota 8y ago
        I wish I saw this before taking to google and becoming disappointed that no hierarchy based on holograms exists
  - jcranmer 8y ago
    There's no evidence that the guy was paid to sabotage Tesla by any competitor or anything other than a purely personal grudge. That an upset worker intentionally sabotages a production line isn't the extraordinary claim; that your competition is paying some workers to sabotage your production lines is.
gadders 8y ago
I never know what to believe with Elon Musk - designing the hyperloop, selling flamethrowers etc. However, if you did a find on replace on his email and swapped "Tesla" for "Theranos" you could imagine it being an act of desperation.
baby 8y ago
This is the crazy thing about the stock market in general, it incentivizes you to cheat and get dirty in a lot of ways when a large amount of your money is in it.
- tomp 8y ago
  If anything, the stock market discourages this, because without it, people with a lot of money invested into things wouldn't be able to liquidate it at any price (before the investment matures), so they'd be more motivated to deploy illegal means to protect their wealth.
twayalways 8y ago
>Everyone's reaction to this seems to be "He is crazy / paranoid". He also investigated "sabotage" when a SpaceX rocket exploded in 2016. >or a competing manufacturer, or an oil / gas company finally picking things up after a terrible oil price collapse This is borderline ridiculous. Are you really convinced that Tesla is on the verge of upending the entire energy world? That any minute now they are going to put Big Oil out of business? Companies like Exxon and BP are doing far more R&D into renewables than Tesla is. They aren't even thinking about Tesla. Other auto manufacturers are spending more on R&D and working hard to get cars out. They are behind, but they are succeeding. Outside of the coastal elites or tech junkies, Tesla is practically unknown and is a rounding error to competitors. The data shows they aren't "growing like gangbusters". Model S/X are stagnating, SolarCity is installing far less per quarter (and essentially laid everyone off recently). Read the financials. There are tons of competitors in both renewables and cars, but they all decided to pick on Tesla, did they? >but when you're working at this level as CEO I feel like you have to at least consider the possibility. So you say it in an email and leak it to the press before any investigation is done? I called this a long time ago, on these forums: if/when Tesla blows up, everyone is going to point to some conspiracy, rather than lack of execution. Silicon Valley has completely lost touch with reality.
- magnetic 8y ago
  > Outside of the coastal elites or tech junkies, Tesla is practically unknown and is a rounding error to competitors. Tesla outsells BMW, Audi and Mercedes' flagships in their home market - https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/tesla-outsells-bmw-audi-mercedes-flagships/ https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/tesla-outsells-bmw-audi-m... Tesla Model 3 Outsells BMW, Mercedes Equivalents in California - The Model 3 is the best selling mid-size premium sedan sold in California in the first quarter. - https://www.thestreet.com/investing/stocks/tesla-outsold-bmw-mercedes-in-california-in-the-first-quarter-14599367 https://www.thestreet.com/investing/stocks/tesla-outsold-bmw... It seems it would be healthy for competitors to take note of this "rounding error"...
  - dsabanin 8y ago
    And, of course, BMW and Mercedes are simply incapable of competing with Tesla on quality engineering and streamlined manufacturing processes, so the only option they have left is sabotage. It is very hard to connect electric motors to laptop battery packs and to replace the dashboard with an android tablet.
saas_co_de 8y ago
There is no evidence for any of the the claims being made. Unless we see a criminal investigation and charges this is nothing more than pr. Musk does sound a bit like a paranoid crack head but the pr gambit is to distract from the recent string of tesla crashes and spontaneous combustions by floating the idea of sabotage. Of course they cant directly allege sabotage because it is absurd but if you put the idea out there then people infer it.

jcranmer 8y ago

From the standpoint of anyone trying to sabotage Tesla, the risk/reward ratio is extremely high. To claim that someone is trying to do so is an extraordinary claim, and we all know the saying about extraordinary claims...

Jedd 8y ago
> From the standpoint of anyone trying to sabotage Tesla, the risk/reward ratio is extremely high. Can you show your working in that calculation please? My understanding is that the reward / risk ratio is extremely high for more than a handful of obvious players.
- kbenson 8y ago
  That was my initial reaction to that assessment as well. Normally the risk-reward ratio is high, but with the largest short position of the market (at some point inthe last couple months, possibly still currently) at above $10 billion, that's a lot of potential reward that might be capable of being paid out, even when we consider that much of it is small individual positions.
omarforgotpwd 8y ago
Elon says that the person claimed he did it because he didn't get a promotion he wanted. That's probably true because it would be the least extraordinary possibility. But it doesn't hurt to consider and prepare for extraordinary circumstances.
FortNightLord 8y ago
Uh it says the guy admitted to it...and gave reasons...a confession is more than enough evidence.
- olivermarks 8y ago
  People at Tesla are working incredibly hard, they just had a FTE mass layoff and are relying heavily on 'associates'. This reminds me of the darker days at Zappos with their holocracy business model and all powerful vanity CEO. It's not hard to imagine the disgruntled moving fast and breaking things in frustration
  - d0mine 8y ago
    s/holocracy/holAcracy/
    - gota 8y ago
      I wish I saw this before taking to google and becoming disappointed that no hierarchy based on holograms exists
- jcranmer 8y ago
  There's no evidence that the guy was paid to sabotage Tesla by any competitor or anything other than a purely personal grudge. That an upset worker intentionally sabotages a production line isn't the extraordinary claim; that your competition is paying some workers to sabotage your production lines is.

gadders 8y ago

I never know what to believe with Elon Musk - designing the hyperloop, selling flamethrowers etc. However, if you did a find on replace on his email and swapped "Tesla" for "Theranos" you could imagine it being an act of desperation.

baby 8y ago

This is the crazy thing about the stock market in general, it incentivizes you to cheat and get dirty in a lot of ways when a large amount of your money is in it.

tomp 8y ago
If anything, the stock market discourages this, because without it, people with a lot of money invested into things wouldn't be able to liquidate it at any price (before the investment matures), so they'd be more motivated to deploy illegal means to protect their wealth.

twayalways 8y ago

>Everyone's reaction to this seems to be "He is crazy / paranoid". He also investigated "sabotage" when a SpaceX rocket exploded in 2016. >or a competing manufacturer, or an oil / gas company finally picking things up after a terrible oil price collapse This is borderline ridiculous. Are you really convinced that Tesla is on the verge of upending the entire energy world? That any minute now they are going to put Big Oil out of business? Companies like Exxon and BP are doing far more R&D into renewables than Tesla is. They aren't even thinking about Tesla. Other auto manufacturers are spending more on R&D and working hard to get cars out. They are behind, but they are succeeding. Outside of the coastal elites or tech junkies, Tesla is practically unknown and is a rounding error to competitors. The data shows they aren't "growing like gangbusters". Model S/X are stagnating, SolarCity is installing far less per quarter (and essentially laid everyone off recently). Read the financials. There are tons of competitors in both renewables and cars, but they all decided to pick on Tesla, did they? >but when you're working at this level as CEO I feel like you have to at least consider the possibility. So you say it in an email and leak it to the press before any investigation is done? I called this a long time ago, on these forums: if/when Tesla blows up, everyone is going to point to some conspiracy, rather than lack of execution. Silicon Valley has completely lost touch with reality.

magnetic 8y ago
> Outside of the coastal elites or tech junkies, Tesla is practically unknown and is a rounding error to competitors. Tesla outsells BMW, Audi and Mercedes' flagships in their home market - https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/tesla-outsells-bmw-audi-mercedes-flagships/ https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/tesla-outsells-bmw-audi-m... Tesla Model 3 Outsells BMW, Mercedes Equivalents in California - The Model 3 is the best selling mid-size premium sedan sold in California in the first quarter. - https://www.thestreet.com/investing/stocks/tesla-outsold-bmw-mercedes-in-california-in-the-first-quarter-14599367 https://www.thestreet.com/investing/stocks/tesla-outsold-bmw... It seems it would be healthy for competitors to take note of this "rounding error"...
- dsabanin 8y ago
  And, of course, BMW and Mercedes are simply incapable of competing with Tesla on quality engineering and streamlined manufacturing processes, so the only option they have left is sabotage. It is very hard to connect electric motors to laptop battery packs and to replace the dashboard with an android tablet.

saas_co_de 8y ago

There is no evidence for any of the the claims being made. Unless we see a criminal investigation and charges this is nothing more than pr. Musk does sound a bit like a paranoid crack head but the pr gambit is to distract from the recent string of tesla crashes and spontaneous combustions by floating the idea of sabotage. Of course they cant directly allege sabotage because it is absurd but if you put the idea out there then people infer it.