25 ms·

Elon Musk Confronts a Fateful Tweet and an ‘Excruciating’ Year

278 points by tysone 8y ago

asknthrow 8y ago
> spent his birthday holed up in Tesla’s offices as the company raced to meet elusive production targets. How tough?!
- TaylorAlexander 8y ago
  I don’t know if you’ve ever put your whole body and life in to a project, but we can push ourselves well past our healthy limits. It can genuinely be hard on our bodies and our minds.
  - ndespres 8y ago
    Very little sympathy from me for someone suffering from the delusions of grandeur combined with self-martyrdom, especially when combined with the petty foolishness constantly on display from him. And for what? To blow off his brothers wedding as described in the article to resume pacing the tesla plant speaks volumes about this guys character.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - lazysheepherd 8y ago
      ndespres people are different, and hope you are enjoying your life in your way. What Musk is experiencing is not extrinsic and he is not martyr for anyone. He does this because it is the most remarkable drive he has about life. It just happens to him because of his biology and it is not a calculated act. Fulfilling that intrinsic drive is the most rewarding feeling one can experience.
enraged_camel 8y ago
Musk may have made the biggest mistake of his career with that single tweet. According to rumors, Tesla's internal legal team has begun to calculate damages; possible impact from potential investor lawsuits apparently surpasses $1 billion. https://twitter.com/CGasparino/status/1030176495631839232 https://twitter.com/CGasparino/status/1030176495631839232
- dnomad 8y ago
  According to rumors I heard that Tesla's internal legal team has determined that Musk will have to give up one of his children. But then that could be just pure bullshit like all of these Tesla "rumors" turn out to be. When do you suppose people will learn not to buy into and repeat stupid rumors as fact?
  - enraged_camel 8y ago
    There is a SEC investigation. We know that for a fact. And that fact alone indicates that the situation is extremely serious. Dire, even. The federal government does not look kindly upon stock manipulation. The linked NYTimes piece is Tesla's PR "submarine" at work. http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
    - dnomad 8y ago
      The presence of an SEC investigation is cause for concern. But why not just say that? Why repeat absurd rumors about billion dollar investor lawsuits? What does it gain you to spread, by your own admission, completely baseless rumors? I keep thinking HN is not the place for this sort of nonsense but then maybe I'm the one in the wrong. Certainly most discussions about Musk here are not based on any kind of rational analysis of the facts. Yours is the popular position, if a bit wearisome.
      - enraged_camel 8y ago
        >>Why repeat absurd rumors about billion dollar investor lawsuits? You misunderstand. The calculation is not about a single lawsuit costing billions. It's about potential damages from ALL possible lawsuits from pissed off short-sellers. And that's not absurd at all - it's a real possibility, since Tesla stock is one of the most popular on the stock market.
_bxg1 8y ago
This was about what I'd gathered. He's been reckless and made some huge errors in judgement over the past year, but despite it all I hope he succeeds. I don't think he's a hero or a saint like some people do, but his endeavors are having a very real and tangible positive effect on civilization. Most chiefly, as bad as the climate change situation looks right now, it would be so much worse without the insane amount of 1) change in the public's and the auto industry's perception of electric cars, and 2) innovation in battery technology (especially applied to solar arrays), which Tesla has accomplished. Seriously. We would have zero chance without those two hills having been crossed. Character flaws aside, Musk is the only billionaire alive (or even in recent memory) whose business ventures are netting any actual positive effect on society whatsoever. Heck, he might be the only one not having a seriously detrimental effect on society right now. You don't have to like him to acknowledge that.
- archagon 8y ago
  > Character flaws aside, Musk is the only billionaire alive (or even in recent memory) whose business ventures are netting any actual positive effect on society whatsoever. Wait, what? How can you possibly justify that? > Heck, he might be the only one not having a seriously detrimental effect on society right now. You don't have to like him to acknowledge that. What about all those recent self-driving crashes? At best, they're poisoning the well for sensible self-driving legislation. At worst, they're killing people for no reason other than corporate hubris and greed. Then there's the matter of creepy corporate policing, such as the remote lockouts whenever somebody tries to examine the firmware, or the humiliating public accident reports whenever something goes wrong with one of the cars, or the forced corralling of all self-driving taxi business into a Tesla-exclusive service in the future.
  - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > How can you possibly justify that? Rockets! Cars propelled by faraway vibrations! Is there no room in our world for the brilliantly mad?
    - 8y ago
propter_hoc 8y ago
The article notes allegations that the Board is concerned that Mr. Musk has been taking Ambien as a sleeping aid, but instead of sleeping, has been posting bizarre tirades on Twitter. I actually have a number of American* friends who take Ambien frequently with the intent that it be a sleeping aid. However, they all commonly do exactly what Mr. Musk may be doing: failing to sleep after taking their Ambien, and instead staying up late and acting in a crazy manner, and then failing to remember what they did in the morning. How can it be that this drug is prescribed so often? It is pretty clearly a dangerously strong hallucinogen. Maybe it is warranted in really bad insomnia cases, but the risks seem to outweigh the benefits here. Would love to hear any perspectives from users or doctors here. * I am in Canada, and while this may just be sampling error, I know many more Canadians than Americans, but don't know anyone here who to my knowledge has been prescribed Ambien for sleep.
- jjeaff 8y ago
  Do your friend's prescriptions really come up in conversation that often? I have no idea what prescriptions my friends may or may not have with the exception of one or two really close friends.
  - mdorazio 8y ago
    No, but it's fairly common for people on Ambien to have stories about crazy things their SO found them doing in the middle of the night. These stories often pop up in conversation similar to how drunk stories do. There's even an entire subreddit dedicated to the topic [1]. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/ambien/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ambien/
    - Fnoord 8y ago
      Is that solely on Ambien or in combination with other drugs?
      - PeterisP 8y ago
        No combination is needed, Ambien by itself causes such effects.
Animats 8y ago
"Then he got in a Tesla Model S and drove himself to the airport. En route, Mr. Musk typed his fateful message." Don't text while driving. This going private thing is a strange idea. Sell Tesla to the Saudi sovereign wealth fund? The one dedicated to keeping oil a viable industry? Does he want Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud as a boss? That makes no sense. Softbank might make sense. Part of Musk's problem seems to be "Only I can fix it". Tesla desperately needs a chief operating officer. They have a VP of manufacturing, Gilbert Passin, who's a car guy, but he does not seem to be in charge. He's not the one living in the plant. There are people who have fixed broken production lines. Musk is not one of them. Tesla finally produced 5,000 Model 3 units a week for two weeks running. That's encouraging. If they can sustain that rate for two months, and the quality complaints don't go up, they have the line working. Profitability is another matter. Tesla Fremont has a huge headcount for the output.
- carlmr 8y ago
  >This going private thing is a strange idea. Sell Tesla to the Saudi sovereign wealth fund? The one dedicated to keeping oil a viable industry? Does he want Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud as a boss? That makes no sense. Softbank might make sense. I had the same thought. >Part of Musk's problem seems to be "Only I can fix it". Tesla desperately needs a chief operating officer. I think this comes kind of packaged with software engineering mentality. In software you can try and fail a lot and learn almost anything in a matter of weeks. And you can span up systems way more complex than what other industries are working on alone in your basement in a matter of weeks. Everything because text is much more malleable than any of the working products in other industries. You can plan a house quickly, but you can't build it, see where it failed, change those parts and redo half the architecture because you started out bad. In manufacturing with that mentality you go bankrupt. This mentality gives people coming from software a kind of hubris about being able to do anything alone. I think Musk is badly infected with that mind virus.
- azernik 8y ago
  > Part of Musk's problem seems to be "Only I can fix it". Tesla desperately needs a chief operating officer. They have a VP of manufacturing, Gilbert Passin, who's a car guy, but he does not seem to be in charge. He's not the one living in the plant. There are people who have fixed broken production lines. Musk is not one of them. Basically, Tesla needs Gwynne Whitwell or her clone.
40acres 8y ago
If you've read the biography by Ashlee Vance this shouldn't surprise you. Musk has always been a guy who runs at 100%, even at the sake of his personal life. On the one hand it's inspiring but also very concerning. The board should insist upon a COO.
- speedplane 8y ago
  > "even at the sake of his personal life" This is the wrong attitude. Musk doesn't sacrifice his personal life for work, his work is his life. If anything, he sacrifices his work life for the few personal connections he is forced to make. I definitely don't pity Musk, he found his calling and is answering it, he can deal with the consequences.
WheelsAtLarge 8y ago
Musk has turned himself into a marketing machine in the same manner that the Kardashians have. He sets up dramatic situations that have villains and he plays the good guy trying to save the world from ruin. I commend him for being able to manipulate the media. With their help he's been able to build a billion dollar company. I wish I could do the same. But at this point, I DON'T CARE. All I want to do is read the news and keep up to date with what is happening without having to read anything about him. I find it interesting how we celebrate the fact that we now have all the information we want at our fingertips. But I feel less informed now than when TV and newspapers were the major form of information distributors. -- mainly because of all the trashy info that's available to us. The Tesla daily drama is a great example of trashy news. Tesla can survive or disappear, I don't care. Just get off the daily headlines.
- dmode 8y ago
  You felt compelled to comment here though.
danso 8y ago
I haven't been the biggest Musk fan but this profile did evoke sympathy from me, and felt far more honest than the persona he conveys via Twitter. I don't get how the board could for so long be OK knowing that Musk is as he is, and not putting a much higher priority in finding a second-in-command. What Tesla is trying to achieve is part personal genius/drive from Musk, but I would expect a huge part of it is good logistics and management. Is there something particularly hard about finding a qualified COO for Tesla?
- mdorazio 8y ago
  > Is there something particularly hard about finding a qualified COO for Tesla? From talking to a few former execs at Tesla, yes: working directly for Elon.
  - virgilp 8y ago
    Gwynne Shotwell seems to be doing that just fine. Surely she's not unique in the world - though I do agree that COOs that meet Elon's bar are probably extremely rare.
    - practice9 8y ago
      From what I've read she is not afraid to confront him on different issues. She is as passionate about SpaceX as he is.
      - ceejayoz 8y ago
        Yeah - she was also a first-year employee, SpaceX's eleventh overall. She's got the seniority and the clear long-term established loyalty to be able to say "no", something a newly-minted Tesla COO wouldn't necessarily have.
  - Hurtak 8y ago
    Go on. These are the random insights that we love hn for.
- deleted 8y ago
tomhoward 8y ago
But, he added, “if you have anyone who can do a better job, please let me know. They can have the job. Is there someone who can do the job better? They can have the reins right now.” I think this hits at the crux of the issue around the performance/behaviour of Musk and other leaders of hugely ambitious companies. And I think it highlights the importance of thinking about what kinds of people it will take to lead the next generation of such companies, and how we can identify and develop them. I've never been any kind of Musk fanboy, and like most people I've looked on at his recent behaviour with some combination of bemusement and astonishment. But when I see the hate and vitriol heaped on him, I'm compelled to wonder just what kind of alternative universe people are wishing for. Do we actually want Tesla and SpaceX to fail? Would we rather that Musk had just never founded Tesla and SpaceX, that the world didn't have any companies doing what those companies are trying to do, and that we were left to be content with the previous status quo in the automotive and space industries? If not, then it would surely be better for the conversation to be less about how crazy or unstable or reckless Musk is, and more about how he and other leaders of today and of the future can pursue their ambitious goals, but to do so in a way that is responsible and balanced. The alternative is not some as-yet-unknown-person-other-than-Musk doing the same thing but doing it better. The number of people who are capable of building and running companies like these is vanishingly small and they will inevitably have extreme personality traits - some positive and some negative. My concern is not for Musk's feelings, but for the way society goes about choosing, developing and critiquing the next generation of ambitious leaders, of whom we'll need plenty more if the world's increasingly complex problems are to be solved. I should add that this applies whether we're talking about corporate leaders or political/community leaders.
- Fnoord 8y ago
  Its easy to say that because the chance of it happening is slim, and it allows for him to bail out if that's occurring short-term. For me, Musk's major failure was with the children who were lost in a cave and his pedophile tweet. Everyone has flaws and makes mistakes, but that mistake showed me how flawed his personality is. It was classic narcissism behaviour, right from textbook.
  - 8y ago
kamaal 8y ago
>>He said he had been working up to 120 hours a week recently >>Mr. Musk said he had not taken time off of more than a week since 2001 >>There were times when I didn’t leave the factory for three or four days — days when I didn’t go outside >>This has really come at the expense of seeing my kids. And seeing friends. >>All night — no friends, nothing >>But from a personal pain standpoint, the worst is yet to come. >>It is often a choice of no sleep or Ambien These are dangerous levels of stress. The work alone even without all that big company, big expectation pressure can wear you down. I can only imagine what he must be going through. You don't have rest or sleep, on top of it there is a perennial pressure of saving a big company, and you are also chasing your world altering plans. I guess almost any minor irritation, let alone some thing like the being reminded of short sellers of the impending doom, could trigger a uncontrollable response. I've been there, you just look for any hint of hope, and you feel like lashing out at any thing that is interfering in the path to your cause. You are irritated all the time. Criticism, even genuine largely looks like conspiracy. And you mark any one standing in your way as a enemy. I'm a nobody to offer advice. But it looks some one needs to sit him down, may be even family, and ask him to relax. Before some big failure happens and some more serious mental issue hits him in the face, and it forces him to hurt himself.
- speedplane 8y ago
  You're thinking about it wrong. Working 120 hours a week at a normal job is torture. Working 120 hours at something you love is just living. The 120 hour/week estimates are likely over-inflated folk-lore, but still, when you have a passion for something and care, it's not work, you're just living your life the way you want to. Many say Elon long work-weeks are super-human, they're not. He's just loves doing what he's doing, so why do anything else.
  - kentrado 8y ago
    Also, he is the boss so it is likely just 120 hours of delegating tasks.
    - darkerside 8y ago
factsaresacred 8y ago
His quote on those shorting Tesla stock is a gem: > “They’re not dumb guys, but they’re not supersmart. They’re O.K. They’re smartish.”
- senectus1 8y ago
  gods, it sounds like Trump talk...
- akvadrako 8y ago
  Well it is the most obvious short of the past few years; doesn't take a genius.
jasonszhao 8y ago
Similar news from 2015: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10334001 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10334001
JohnJamesRambo 8y ago
I really think the tweeting while on acid rumors are true. This is my first exposure to the pedo comment he made. I’m baffled how any non-drugged person over the age of 14 could ever think that was a good idea.
bayesian_horse 8y ago
Twitter is bad for you. Repeat that a hundred times.
- refurb 8y ago
  Underrated comment here. There is little to be gained and a ton to be lost with such a casual, public forum. If anyone in a leadership position thinks “I should tweet this!”, the default should be waiting 24 hours before making a final decision and even in that case the answer should be “no”.
  - whamlastxmas 8y ago
    Would you wait 24 hours before tweeting about that new car you just bought? The thing with people in Elon's position is that the gravity of their situation becomes normalized. They're regular people doing regular things from their own perspective. For Elon he doesn't put much thought into his tweets because for him, saying something that might impact the stock price is a pretty normalized. It happened recently with pedo-guy-gate. I can cut the guy some slack for potentially upsetting some people with his tweets considering the massive smear campaign against him and his life's work.
    - bdcravens 8y ago
      Understanding the impact of one's words is a prerequisite of leadership. Does Bill Gates or the CEO of a big oil or pharma get the same pass?
_gbc 8y ago
Saying no to some things would probably help. He is on track to burn out or have a breakdown at the current rate, assuming it hasn't already happened. Personally, I'd love to see him close or sell every company other than SpaceX and focus all of his efforts there.
- shriver 8y ago
  I think when you look back at the pedo comments, and the market manipulation tweets you can easily see him as being in the middle of the breakdown. The question isn't whether he'll break down, but what his next outlandish fuck up will be and how far it'll go before someone steps in.
sschueller 8y ago
It feels to me like Elon is unable or not wanting to delegate. Working 120 hours a week is not productive.
- yAnonymous 8y ago
  >Working 120 hours a week is not productive. My WoW character disagrees. Seriously though, if you enjoy what you're doing, doing a lot of it is fine.
  - maeln 8y ago
    If you really work 120h/weeks, it means that you are left with 48h per week for sleeping/eating/doing other things. Unless he included those hours in the work hour, 48h in 7 days is just not sustainable, it's barely enough just for sleep.
    - yAnonymous 8y ago
      Almost 7 hours of sleep per night is more than sustainable. There are people who can get along with 5 hours of sleep per night without any impact to their health.
      - maeln 8y ago
        That is assuming that he does just that: working and sleeping. So I guess, the time where he eats and tweet is included in its work hours then.
        soared 8y ago
        Thats not terribly far fetched. I eat breakfast and lunch while working. If I had my own office I'd have a treadmill desk too.
    - whamlastxmas 8y ago
      It sounds like he sleeps at the office so that makes sense.
shriver 8y ago
> Efforts are underway to find a No. 2 executive to help take some of the pressure off Mr. Musk, people briefed on the search said. I don't know how anyone could read this and not realise that's a direct search for a replacement CEO. With the best will in the world, Musk has a dozen people at Tesla who COULD pick up some of the slack, the issue isn't not having the right people, the issue is that he won't hand anything off. I don't see that changing.
- mandeepj 8y ago
  > he won't hand anything off Really? You have a real example of SpaceX and see how things are running there. They have a very competent COO running the things smoothly there.
oelmekki 8y ago
I'm surprised we're not discussing what seems to be the core problem from Elon Musk's point of view : financial aggressivity. While his tweet doesn't say why he wants to go private, this article makes it pretty clear : he's harassed by shorters (people who speculate on price going down, and thus who will contribute negative and unfounded opinions just to achieve this goal). Whether this is really his biggest burden or not, there is certainly something to be said about people who earn money because others are in trouble. In any case, seeing that people want you to have troubles certainly doesn't help.
Nasrudith 8y ago
Really Elon Musk has struck me as honestly in need of psychiatric help - not in a derogatory way but a sincere one. Between the outbursts, shortsighted impulsive decisions, and well being CEO of so many different companies at once it sort of resembles some combination of ADHD and Bipolar.
- SkyMarshal 8y ago
  Yeah it’s not a good look for him, like he’s cracking under the pressure. That’s encouraging his short sellers, not discouraging them. He really needs to get a grip, chill, and be more strategic with his PR.
- aws_ls 8y ago
  I think, the problem is just easy access to twitter. We have seen so many downfalls on Twitter, due to irresponsible tweeting, haven't we? I think, its just that. Before the "pedo" tweet, I never felt, any problem with his tweeting. But now, this is the second big gaffe. A twitter buffer feature, could have avoided both issues. But at the same time, I won't like him to delete his account. Kind of enjoy his tweets - and knowing that they are his (sometimes raw) thoughts. May be we just need to forgive more. If a person wants to recall a tweet. What they tweeted should not be held too much against them, perhaps.
  - ohitsdom 8y ago
    Not sure a buffer feature helps when he says he didn't regret his "funding secured" tweet. It may have prevented his tweet about the diver, but it's not clear he realized it was a problem until there was significant public backlash (which feedback wouldn't be present in some buffer).
dharma1 8y ago
I'm afraid his health will be impacted by several years of unimaginable stress caused too much responsibility, real and perceived attacks on his business, sometimes unrealistic promises - and trying to follow up on them, long hours and lack of sleep. Not to mention the trade offs he has made with family/friends vs work. I think we should all be very grateful to the hugely important work he is doing to advance electric vehicles and space exploration, literally forcing two slow moving industries to move much faster, in the right direction. But I wish he was able to do it without working himself to death, or by expecting his colleagues work to death. Maybe it's not possible
dwighttk 8y ago
Maybe a year in prison or so will save his life.
m3mpp 8y ago
This culture of startup is completely insane, what can possibly justify driving oneself to the limit of craziness? Revolutionize the world? How can you revolutionize anything when the method you are using are what created the problem in the first place (always more, always faster)? It's ego, that's all it is, and it usually ends up very badly.
m23khan 8y ago
Edison, Einstein, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk... These guys have changed the World and they all have seriously strange, weird personalities - but they did change the world. Let's learn a lesson over here -- geniuses and industry disrupters are more often than not --- just weird and strange bunch of folks. Hence, learn to respect them and do what you can to make sure they succeed as Human innovation depends on them. The super-smart and inventors like these guys have always been weird, and somewhat not friendly bunch of folks. It is the rest of us who have started to complain and bicker too much and are becoming extremely judgemental and emotionally fragile by the day. Call it by product of the extremely opinionated media or the capability of anonymously posting anger on the internet -- but this isn't helpful behavior from us.
- e40 8y ago
  There is a very good reason for this: to make such an agent of change requires intensity beyond what most humans can endure. I don't think Bezos or Musk or Jobs have/had much of a life outside of work. I think it's also clear they all are/were obsessed with their companies. Obsession and hard work, sustained over a long period of time. People capable of that are few and far between. Add in the luck factor, and it's a miniscule number of people.
- curiousDog 8y ago
  I wouldn't put Zuckerberg amongst the others. He didn't invent anything and neither did he make an immense _positive_ impact on civilization like the other guys did.
- chengiz 8y ago
  This kinda sounds like objectivist kool aid. I should do what I can to make sure Zuck succeeds? I do not want to live in such a, er, utopia. Current state of progress is just fine.
whamlastxmas 8y ago
I had noticed the constantly media bias against Musk recently but didn't realize the motivation until reading this. It feels sad that we live in a world where people plant media stories to tank someone's life work after short selling to make money off their misery.
csorrell 8y ago
This is what burnout looks like. At some point you just hit a wall.
konschubert 8y ago
Musk says he's working 120 hours per week. That's 6 hours of sleep, the rest is work. I don't believe that he's working 120 hours because that's the exact amount of work it's takes to make is companies succeed. I believe he works 120 hours per week because that's simply the max amount of hours he can work. There is no reason to assume that he can't reduce this work by 20% at least with some prioritization and delegation. He doesn't seem to consider this a possibility.
Waterluvian 8y ago
At 47 Musk is likely on the back 9 of his life. I guess it's perfectly fine for him to decide that anyone can have a family and the legacy he wants is in his inventions and companies. But if Musk doesn't see it that way, and finds value in the other intangibles, now's the time to make that change. Not one more year, one more quarter, one more meeting. Now. And this is true for all of us. Be careful how much time you convert into money. You can't convert it back.

278 points by tysone 8y ago

asknthrow 8y ago

> spent his birthday holed up in Tesla’s offices as the company raced to meet elusive production targets. How tough?!

TaylorAlexander 8y ago
I don’t know if you’ve ever put your whole body and life in to a project, but we can push ourselves well past our healthy limits. It can genuinely be hard on our bodies and our minds.
- ndespres 8y ago
  Very little sympathy from me for someone suffering from the delusions of grandeur combined with self-martyrdom, especially when combined with the petty foolishness constantly on display from him. And for what? To blow off his brothers wedding as described in the article to resume pacing the tesla plant speaks volumes about this guys character.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - lazysheepherd 8y ago
    ndespres people are different, and hope you are enjoying your life in your way. What Musk is experiencing is not extrinsic and he is not martyr for anyone. He does this because it is the most remarkable drive he has about life. It just happens to him because of his biology and it is not a calculated act. Fulfilling that intrinsic drive is the most rewarding feeling one can experience.

enraged_camel 8y ago

Musk may have made the biggest mistake of his career with that single tweet. According to rumors, Tesla's internal legal team has begun to calculate damages; possible impact from potential investor lawsuits apparently surpasses $1 billion. https://twitter.com/CGasparino/status/1030176495631839232 https://twitter.com/CGasparino/status/1030176495631839232

dnomad 8y ago
According to rumors I heard that Tesla's internal legal team has determined that Musk will have to give up one of his children. But then that could be just pure bullshit like all of these Tesla "rumors" turn out to be. When do you suppose people will learn not to buy into and repeat stupid rumors as fact?
- enraged_camel 8y ago
  There is a SEC investigation. We know that for a fact. And that fact alone indicates that the situation is extremely serious. Dire, even. The federal government does not look kindly upon stock manipulation. The linked NYTimes piece is Tesla's PR "submarine" at work. http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
  - dnomad 8y ago
    The presence of an SEC investigation is cause for concern. But why not just say that? Why repeat absurd rumors about billion dollar investor lawsuits? What does it gain you to spread, by your own admission, completely baseless rumors? I keep thinking HN is not the place for this sort of nonsense but then maybe I'm the one in the wrong. Certainly most discussions about Musk here are not based on any kind of rational analysis of the facts. Yours is the popular position, if a bit wearisome.
    - enraged_camel 8y ago
      >>Why repeat absurd rumors about billion dollar investor lawsuits? You misunderstand. The calculation is not about a single lawsuit costing billions. It's about potential damages from ALL possible lawsuits from pissed off short-sellers. And that's not absurd at all - it's a real possibility, since Tesla stock is one of the most popular on the stock market.

_bxg1 8y ago

This was about what I'd gathered. He's been reckless and made some huge errors in judgement over the past year, but despite it all I hope he succeeds. I don't think he's a hero or a saint like some people do, but his endeavors are having a very real and tangible positive effect on civilization. Most chiefly, as bad as the climate change situation looks right now, it would be so much worse without the insane amount of 1) change in the public's and the auto industry's perception of electric cars, and 2) innovation in battery technology (especially applied to solar arrays), which Tesla has accomplished. Seriously. We would have zero chance without those two hills having been crossed. Character flaws aside, Musk is the only billionaire alive (or even in recent memory) whose business ventures are netting any actual positive effect on society whatsoever. Heck, he might be the only one not having a seriously detrimental effect on society right now. You don't have to like him to acknowledge that.

archagon 8y ago
> Character flaws aside, Musk is the only billionaire alive (or even in recent memory) whose business ventures are netting any actual positive effect on society whatsoever. Wait, what? How can you possibly justify that? > Heck, he might be the only one not having a seriously detrimental effect on society right now. You don't have to like him to acknowledge that. What about all those recent self-driving crashes? At best, they're poisoning the well for sensible self-driving legislation. At worst, they're killing people for no reason other than corporate hubris and greed. Then there's the matter of creepy corporate policing, such as the remote lockouts whenever somebody tries to examine the firmware, or the humiliating public accident reports whenever something goes wrong with one of the cars, or the forced corralling of all self-driving taxi business into a Tesla-exclusive service in the future.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > How can you possibly justify that? Rockets! Cars propelled by faraway vibrations! Is there no room in our world for the brilliantly mad?
  - 8y ago

propter_hoc 8y ago

The article notes allegations that the Board is concerned that Mr. Musk has been taking Ambien as a sleeping aid, but instead of sleeping, has been posting bizarre tirades on Twitter. I actually have a number of American* friends who take Ambien frequently with the intent that it be a sleeping aid. However, they all commonly do exactly what Mr. Musk may be doing: failing to sleep after taking their Ambien, and instead staying up late and acting in a crazy manner, and then failing to remember what they did in the morning. How can it be that this drug is prescribed so often? It is pretty clearly a dangerously strong hallucinogen. Maybe it is warranted in really bad insomnia cases, but the risks seem to outweigh the benefits here. Would love to hear any perspectives from users or doctors here. * I am in Canada, and while this may just be sampling error, I know many more Canadians than Americans, but don't know anyone here who to my knowledge has been prescribed Ambien for sleep.

jjeaff 8y ago
Do your friend's prescriptions really come up in conversation that often? I have no idea what prescriptions my friends may or may not have with the exception of one or two really close friends.
- mdorazio 8y ago
  No, but it's fairly common for people on Ambien to have stories about crazy things their SO found them doing in the middle of the night. These stories often pop up in conversation similar to how drunk stories do. There's even an entire subreddit dedicated to the topic [1]. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/ambien/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ambien/
  - Fnoord 8y ago
    Is that solely on Ambien or in combination with other drugs?
    - PeterisP 8y ago
      No combination is needed, Ambien by itself causes such effects.

Animats 8y ago

"Then he got in a Tesla Model S and drove himself to the airport. En route, Mr. Musk typed his fateful message." Don't text while driving. This going private thing is a strange idea. Sell Tesla to the Saudi sovereign wealth fund? The one dedicated to keeping oil a viable industry? Does he want Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud as a boss? That makes no sense. Softbank might make sense. Part of Musk's problem seems to be "Only I can fix it". Tesla desperately needs a chief operating officer. They have a VP of manufacturing, Gilbert Passin, who's a car guy, but he does not seem to be in charge. He's not the one living in the plant. There are people who have fixed broken production lines. Musk is not one of them. Tesla finally produced 5,000 Model 3 units a week for two weeks running. That's encouraging. If they can sustain that rate for two months, and the quality complaints don't go up, they have the line working. Profitability is another matter. Tesla Fremont has a huge headcount for the output.

carlmr 8y ago
>This going private thing is a strange idea. Sell Tesla to the Saudi sovereign wealth fund? The one dedicated to keeping oil a viable industry? Does he want Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud as a boss? That makes no sense. Softbank might make sense. I had the same thought. >Part of Musk's problem seems to be "Only I can fix it". Tesla desperately needs a chief operating officer. I think this comes kind of packaged with software engineering mentality. In software you can try and fail a lot and learn almost anything in a matter of weeks. And you can span up systems way more complex than what other industries are working on alone in your basement in a matter of weeks. Everything because text is much more malleable than any of the working products in other industries. You can plan a house quickly, but you can't build it, see where it failed, change those parts and redo half the architecture because you started out bad. In manufacturing with that mentality you go bankrupt. This mentality gives people coming from software a kind of hubris about being able to do anything alone. I think Musk is badly infected with that mind virus.
azernik 8y ago
> Part of Musk's problem seems to be "Only I can fix it". Tesla desperately needs a chief operating officer. They have a VP of manufacturing, Gilbert Passin, who's a car guy, but he does not seem to be in charge. He's not the one living in the plant. There are people who have fixed broken production lines. Musk is not one of them. Basically, Tesla needs Gwynne Whitwell or her clone.

40acres 8y ago

If you've read the biography by Ashlee Vance this shouldn't surprise you. Musk has always been a guy who runs at 100%, even at the sake of his personal life. On the one hand it's inspiring but also very concerning. The board should insist upon a COO.

speedplane 8y ago
> "even at the sake of his personal life" This is the wrong attitude. Musk doesn't sacrifice his personal life for work, his work is his life. If anything, he sacrifices his work life for the few personal connections he is forced to make. I definitely don't pity Musk, he found his calling and is answering it, he can deal with the consequences.

WheelsAtLarge 8y ago

Musk has turned himself into a marketing machine in the same manner that the Kardashians have. He sets up dramatic situations that have villains and he plays the good guy trying to save the world from ruin. I commend him for being able to manipulate the media. With their help he's been able to build a billion dollar company. I wish I could do the same. But at this point, I DON'T CARE. All I want to do is read the news and keep up to date with what is happening without having to read anything about him. I find it interesting how we celebrate the fact that we now have all the information we want at our fingertips. But I feel less informed now than when TV and newspapers were the major form of information distributors. -- mainly because of all the trashy info that's available to us. The Tesla daily drama is a great example of trashy news. Tesla can survive or disappear, I don't care. Just get off the daily headlines.

dmode 8y ago
You felt compelled to comment here though.

danso 8y ago

I haven't been the biggest Musk fan but this profile did evoke sympathy from me, and felt far more honest than the persona he conveys via Twitter. I don't get how the board could for so long be OK knowing that Musk is as he is, and not putting a much higher priority in finding a second-in-command. What Tesla is trying to achieve is part personal genius/drive from Musk, but I would expect a huge part of it is good logistics and management. Is there something particularly hard about finding a qualified COO for Tesla?

mdorazio 8y ago
> Is there something particularly hard about finding a qualified COO for Tesla? From talking to a few former execs at Tesla, yes: working directly for Elon.
- virgilp 8y ago
  Gwynne Shotwell seems to be doing that just fine. Surely she's not unique in the world - though I do agree that COOs that meet Elon's bar are probably extremely rare.
  - practice9 8y ago
    From what I've read she is not afraid to confront him on different issues. She is as passionate about SpaceX as he is.
    - ceejayoz 8y ago
      Yeah - she was also a first-year employee, SpaceX's eleventh overall. She's got the seniority and the clear long-term established loyalty to be able to say "no", something a newly-minted Tesla COO wouldn't necessarily have.
- Hurtak 8y ago
  Go on. These are the random insights that we love hn for.
deleted 8y ago

tomhoward 8y ago

But, he added, “if you have anyone who can do a better job, please let me know. They can have the job. Is there someone who can do the job better? They can have the reins right now.” I think this hits at the crux of the issue around the performance/behaviour of Musk and other leaders of hugely ambitious companies. And I think it highlights the importance of thinking about what kinds of people it will take to lead the next generation of such companies, and how we can identify and develop them. I've never been any kind of Musk fanboy, and like most people I've looked on at his recent behaviour with some combination of bemusement and astonishment. But when I see the hate and vitriol heaped on him, I'm compelled to wonder just what kind of alternative universe people are wishing for. Do we actually want Tesla and SpaceX to fail? Would we rather that Musk had just never founded Tesla and SpaceX, that the world didn't have any companies doing what those companies are trying to do, and that we were left to be content with the previous status quo in the automotive and space industries? If not, then it would surely be better for the conversation to be less about how crazy or unstable or reckless Musk is, and more about how he and other leaders of today and of the future can pursue their ambitious goals, but to do so in a way that is responsible and balanced. The alternative is not some as-yet-unknown-person-other-than-Musk doing the same thing but doing it better. The number of people who are capable of building and running companies like these is vanishingly small and they will inevitably have extreme personality traits - some positive and some negative. My concern is not for Musk's feelings, but for the way society goes about choosing, developing and critiquing the next generation of ambitious leaders, of whom we'll need plenty more if the world's increasingly complex problems are to be solved. I should add that this applies whether we're talking about corporate leaders or political/community leaders.

Fnoord 8y ago
Its easy to say that because the chance of it happening is slim, and it allows for him to bail out if that's occurring short-term. For me, Musk's major failure was with the children who were lost in a cave and his pedophile tweet. Everyone has flaws and makes mistakes, but that mistake showed me how flawed his personality is. It was classic narcissism behaviour, right from textbook.
- 8y ago

kamaal 8y ago

>>He said he had been working up to 120 hours a week recently >>Mr. Musk said he had not taken time off of more than a week since 2001 >>There were times when I didn’t leave the factory for three or four days — days when I didn’t go outside >>This has really come at the expense of seeing my kids. And seeing friends. >>All night — no friends, nothing >>But from a personal pain standpoint, the worst is yet to come. >>It is often a choice of no sleep or Ambien These are dangerous levels of stress. The work alone even without all that big company, big expectation pressure can wear you down. I can only imagine what he must be going through. You don't have rest or sleep, on top of it there is a perennial pressure of saving a big company, and you are also chasing your world altering plans. I guess almost any minor irritation, let alone some thing like the being reminded of short sellers of the impending doom, could trigger a uncontrollable response. I've been there, you just look for any hint of hope, and you feel like lashing out at any thing that is interfering in the path to your cause. You are irritated all the time. Criticism, even genuine largely looks like conspiracy. And you mark any one standing in your way as a enemy. I'm a nobody to offer advice. But it looks some one needs to sit him down, may be even family, and ask him to relax. Before some big failure happens and some more serious mental issue hits him in the face, and it forces him to hurt himself.

speedplane 8y ago
You're thinking about it wrong. Working 120 hours a week at a normal job is torture. Working 120 hours at something you love is just living. The 120 hour/week estimates are likely over-inflated folk-lore, but still, when you have a passion for something and care, it's not work, you're just living your life the way you want to. Many say Elon long work-weeks are super-human, they're not. He's just loves doing what he's doing, so why do anything else.
- kentrado 8y ago
  Also, he is the boss so it is likely just 120 hours of delegating tasks.
  - darkerside 8y ago

factsaresacred 8y ago

His quote on those shorting Tesla stock is a gem: > “They’re not dumb guys, but they’re not supersmart. They’re O.K. They’re smartish.”

senectus1 8y ago
gods, it sounds like Trump talk...
akvadrako 8y ago
Well it is the most obvious short of the past few years; doesn't take a genius.

jasonszhao 8y ago

Similar news from 2015: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10334001 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10334001

JohnJamesRambo 8y ago

I really think the tweeting while on acid rumors are true. This is my first exposure to the pedo comment he made. I’m baffled how any non-drugged person over the age of 14 could ever think that was a good idea.

bayesian_horse 8y ago

Twitter is bad for you. Repeat that a hundred times.

refurb 8y ago
Underrated comment here. There is little to be gained and a ton to be lost with such a casual, public forum. If anyone in a leadership position thinks “I should tweet this!”, the default should be waiting 24 hours before making a final decision and even in that case the answer should be “no”.
- whamlastxmas 8y ago
  Would you wait 24 hours before tweeting about that new car you just bought? The thing with people in Elon's position is that the gravity of their situation becomes normalized. They're regular people doing regular things from their own perspective. For Elon he doesn't put much thought into his tweets because for him, saying something that might impact the stock price is a pretty normalized. It happened recently with pedo-guy-gate. I can cut the guy some slack for potentially upsetting some people with his tweets considering the massive smear campaign against him and his life's work.
  - bdcravens 8y ago
    Understanding the impact of one's words is a prerequisite of leadership. Does Bill Gates or the CEO of a big oil or pharma get the same pass?

_gbc 8y ago

Saying no to some things would probably help. He is on track to burn out or have a breakdown at the current rate, assuming it hasn't already happened. Personally, I'd love to see him close or sell every company other than SpaceX and focus all of his efforts there.

shriver 8y ago
I think when you look back at the pedo comments, and the market manipulation tweets you can easily see him as being in the middle of the breakdown. The question isn't whether he'll break down, but what his next outlandish fuck up will be and how far it'll go before someone steps in.

sschueller 8y ago

It feels to me like Elon is unable or not wanting to delegate. Working 120 hours a week is not productive.

yAnonymous 8y ago
>Working 120 hours a week is not productive. My WoW character disagrees. Seriously though, if you enjoy what you're doing, doing a lot of it is fine.
- maeln 8y ago
  If you really work 120h/weeks, it means that you are left with 48h per week for sleeping/eating/doing other things. Unless he included those hours in the work hour, 48h in 7 days is just not sustainable, it's barely enough just for sleep.
  - yAnonymous 8y ago
    Almost 7 hours of sleep per night is more than sustainable. There are people who can get along with 5 hours of sleep per night without any impact to their health.
    - maeln 8y ago
      That is assuming that he does just that: working and sleeping. So I guess, the time where he eats and tweet is included in its work hours then.
      - soared 8y ago
        Thats not terribly far fetched. I eat breakfast and lunch while working. If I had my own office I'd have a treadmill desk too.
  - whamlastxmas 8y ago
    It sounds like he sleeps at the office so that makes sense.

shriver 8y ago

> Efforts are underway to find a No. 2 executive to help take some of the pressure off Mr. Musk, people briefed on the search said. I don't know how anyone could read this and not realise that's a direct search for a replacement CEO. With the best will in the world, Musk has a dozen people at Tesla who COULD pick up some of the slack, the issue isn't not having the right people, the issue is that he won't hand anything off. I don't see that changing.

mandeepj 8y ago
> he won't hand anything off Really? You have a real example of SpaceX and see how things are running there. They have a very competent COO running the things smoothly there.

oelmekki 8y ago

I'm surprised we're not discussing what seems to be the core problem from Elon Musk's point of view : financial aggressivity. While his tweet doesn't say why he wants to go private, this article makes it pretty clear : he's harassed by shorters (people who speculate on price going down, and thus who will contribute negative and unfounded opinions just to achieve this goal). Whether this is really his biggest burden or not, there is certainly something to be said about people who earn money because others are in trouble. In any case, seeing that people want you to have troubles certainly doesn't help.

Nasrudith 8y ago

Really Elon Musk has struck me as honestly in need of psychiatric help - not in a derogatory way but a sincere one. Between the outbursts, shortsighted impulsive decisions, and well being CEO of so many different companies at once it sort of resembles some combination of ADHD and Bipolar.

SkyMarshal 8y ago
Yeah it’s not a good look for him, like he’s cracking under the pressure. That’s encouraging his short sellers, not discouraging them. He really needs to get a grip, chill, and be more strategic with his PR.
aws_ls 8y ago
I think, the problem is just easy access to twitter. We have seen so many downfalls on Twitter, due to irresponsible tweeting, haven't we? I think, its just that. Before the "pedo" tweet, I never felt, any problem with his tweeting. But now, this is the second big gaffe. A twitter buffer feature, could have avoided both issues. But at the same time, I won't like him to delete his account. Kind of enjoy his tweets - and knowing that they are his (sometimes raw) thoughts. May be we just need to forgive more. If a person wants to recall a tweet. What they tweeted should not be held too much against them, perhaps.
- ohitsdom 8y ago
  Not sure a buffer feature helps when he says he didn't regret his "funding secured" tweet. It may have prevented his tweet about the diver, but it's not clear he realized it was a problem until there was significant public backlash (which feedback wouldn't be present in some buffer).

dharma1 8y ago

I'm afraid his health will be impacted by several years of unimaginable stress caused too much responsibility, real and perceived attacks on his business, sometimes unrealistic promises - and trying to follow up on them, long hours and lack of sleep. Not to mention the trade offs he has made with family/friends vs work. I think we should all be very grateful to the hugely important work he is doing to advance electric vehicles and space exploration, literally forcing two slow moving industries to move much faster, in the right direction. But I wish he was able to do it without working himself to death, or by expecting his colleagues work to death. Maybe it's not possible

dwighttk 8y ago

Maybe a year in prison or so will save his life.

m3mpp 8y ago

This culture of startup is completely insane, what can possibly justify driving oneself to the limit of craziness? Revolutionize the world? How can you revolutionize anything when the method you are using are what created the problem in the first place (always more, always faster)? It's ego, that's all it is, and it usually ends up very badly.

m23khan 8y ago

Edison, Einstein, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk... These guys have changed the World and they all have seriously strange, weird personalities - but they did change the world. Let's learn a lesson over here -- geniuses and industry disrupters are more often than not --- just weird and strange bunch of folks. Hence, learn to respect them and do what you can to make sure they succeed as Human innovation depends on them. The super-smart and inventors like these guys have always been weird, and somewhat not friendly bunch of folks. It is the rest of us who have started to complain and bicker too much and are becoming extremely judgemental and emotionally fragile by the day. Call it by product of the extremely opinionated media or the capability of anonymously posting anger on the internet -- but this isn't helpful behavior from us.

e40 8y ago
There is a very good reason for this: to make such an agent of change requires intensity beyond what most humans can endure. I don't think Bezos or Musk or Jobs have/had much of a life outside of work. I think it's also clear they all are/were obsessed with their companies. Obsession and hard work, sustained over a long period of time. People capable of that are few and far between. Add in the luck factor, and it's a miniscule number of people.
curiousDog 8y ago
I wouldn't put Zuckerberg amongst the others. He didn't invent anything and neither did he make an immense _positive_ impact on civilization like the other guys did.
chengiz 8y ago
This kinda sounds like objectivist kool aid. I should do what I can to make sure Zuck succeeds? I do not want to live in such a, er, utopia. Current state of progress is just fine.

whamlastxmas 8y ago

I had noticed the constantly media bias against Musk recently but didn't realize the motivation until reading this. It feels sad that we live in a world where people plant media stories to tank someone's life work after short selling to make money off their misery.

csorrell 8y ago

This is what burnout looks like. At some point you just hit a wall.

konschubert 8y ago

Musk says he's working 120 hours per week. That's 6 hours of sleep, the rest is work. I don't believe that he's working 120 hours because that's the exact amount of work it's takes to make is companies succeed. I believe he works 120 hours per week because that's simply the max amount of hours he can work. There is no reason to assume that he can't reduce this work by 20% at least with some prioritization and delegation. He doesn't seem to consider this a possibility.

Waterluvian 8y ago

At 47 Musk is likely on the back 9 of his life. I guess it's perfectly fine for him to decide that anyone can have a family and the legacy he wants is in his inventions and companies. But if Musk doesn't see it that way, and finds value in the other intangibles, now's the time to make that change. Not one more year, one more quarter, one more meeting. Now. And this is true for all of us. Be careful how much time you convert into money. You can't convert it back.