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So Musk is stepping down as chairman of the board at Tesla, but one thing this doesn't really address is whether he'll remain as CEO. I presume that decision wi

So Musk is stepping down as chairman of the board at Tesla, but one thing this doesn't really address is whether he'll remain as CEO. I presume that decision will be made by the new (larger) board of directors?

alexandros 8y ago
you never know, the expanded board might actually be suicidal and choose to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. I don't think they're that deranged, but you never know.
- threeseed 8y ago
  Tesla doesn’t need Musk right now. They need a serious executive from a former car company who has experience in quiet, deliberate execution. Lots of companies are making cars without anywhere near the same levels of fanfare.
  - reaperducer 8y ago
    Lots of companies are making cars without anywhere near the same levels of fanfare. I don't know much about the auto industry, and don't really follow Tesla, but I do know that Tesla stock is worth almost an order of magnitude more than General Motors.
    - asaph 8y ago
      Only by share price, which doesn't matter. By market cap, a far better (though still imperfect) measure of company value, GM is worth a little more. TSLA ~$45.5B GM ~$47B
    - thinkcontext 8y ago
      The stocks aren't really comparable. If you liquidated the companies GM would bring in many times Tesla. Tesla's value comes with a huge risk premium. Tesla was very close to going under a few months ago and it could still do so, if it doesn't execute right.
      - mrkstu 8y ago
        Do you really believe he couldn't raise 4-5 billion by calling friends at Google who share his vision? He wouldn't want to dilute his holdings, but if push came to shove he'd do it.
  - meowface 8y ago
    I disagree. Musk is the face of the company and the brand. Consumers will be less interested if he's ousted against his will and no longer involved. Tesla might not die, but I don't think they'd be as successful without him.
    - threeseed 8y ago
      Pretty sure consumers would be happier about having a car that is available to buy and doesn’t have major quality issues.
      - stevew20 8y ago
        I disagree. Musk as CEO drove Tesla, against every estimate I've seen or heard of, to be profitable. Prior to musk, the cars didn't exist... So they were unavailable to buy. And I don't see how changing him out will fix quality issues, other than having a future CEO halt innovation in favor of bug hunting... Which would be the start of a quick end for Tesla. They are built on innovation.
        threeseed 8y ago
        Musk is a great startup CEO. But what Tesla needs now is an enterprise CEO. And you can be an enterprise CEO and still innovate as a company eg. Apple, Microsoft, Mercedes-Benz.
        twblalock 8y ago
        > Musk is a great startup CEO. But what Tesla needs now is an enterprise CEO. I guess that’s the new meme about Musk now, but I see no reason to believe it. Plenty of startup CEOs have done well after their companies became enterprises. Larry Ellison and Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos are obvious examples. So is Steve Jobs, who came back to Apple after a decade of absence and rebuilt the company.
        s73v3r_ 8y ago
  - profosaur 8y ago
    Do you think Tesla could have made it through production hell without Musk? Nobody knows the technical details of Tesla the way Musk does. Nobody would sleep in the factory like Musk does. Who else would have shipped a production line from Europe by air? The dude solves problems and puts out fires and keeps Tesla on the right path like nobody else. People like Elon Musk are not fungible.
    - gamblor956 8y ago
      The general consensus is that Tesla experienced production hell solely because of Musk. Moreover, their impending cash crunch is also due to Musk rushing through things rather than stepping back for a minute to spend quality time figuring out the details. People like Musk aren't just replaceable, they should be replaced so soon as possible to lookout the damage they do.
  - thaumaturgy 8y ago
    > Lots of companies are making cars without anywhere near the same levels of fanfare. Could that be because almost all of those other cars are utterly unremarkable?
  - blihp 8y ago
    Now that's an entertaining thought. Why not just set fire to all the company's assets right now and be done with it? 'Serious executives' are who you bring in when things are running smoothly and there's not much to screw up. Someone like Elon is needed to get it to a more stable point both product and revenue-wise.
  - gruturo 8y ago
    Exactly like Apple didn't need Steve Jobs. Except they did.
  - tobias3 8y ago
    At the very least he is a one person marketing machine making people buy pricy cars by a very new car brand using only his twitter account and his personal brand (and shooting one car at mars). Quick googling got me a VW ad budget of more than $6 billion. $40 million is nothing compared to that.
  - sonnyblarney 8y ago
    "They need a serious executive from a former car company who has experience in quiet, deliberate execution." Not really. They need that as a COO. Tesla has no real magic sauce. They are what they are because of the Musk Hype Machine and his ability to 'inspire' people to move to electric. If Tesla was based on some magic ingredients that were a real competitive advantage, I'd say let a 'quiet' CEO take over with a hot dog CMO. But they are still in 'founders mode' wherein the founder is a big factor in inspiring and motivating and that gives him a lot of power. You might be surprised to know that regular CEO's don't necessarily have all the power you think. They have to convince, fight internal battles, motivate. It's hard for them to do 'big things'. Musk is becoming a problem but not so much that he needs to go. He needs a really powerful COO who can go toe-to-toe with him - and he needs to get some f*ing sleep and go back to the 'old' Musk from 2010.
  - pvelagal 8y ago
    There is nothing a traditional car company CEO would bring to the table that Tesla would need. All initiatives that Tesla is aiming for needs a visionary workaholic like Elon. Tesla needs Elon. He is irreplaceable.
  - Udik 8y ago
    My humble opinion is that Tesla without Musk is worth a small fraction of its current valuation. It's a tiny car manufacturer in a world of hyper-competitive giants, and the only thing that kept it afloat is Musk's incredible drive.
  - virtualritz 8y ago
    I disagree. Musk is to Tesla what Jobs was to Apple. Not in the same way ofc. but in the same sense. If Tesla lost Musk now it would likely be damaging to the company in similar ways as it was to Apple in the years after Jobs departure in 1985.
- InclinedPlane 8y ago
  I think that's a little overblown. Certainly Musk has his talents but they are not infinite and as we've seen he also brings a lot of disadvantages to the table as well. Not just these outbursts but many other aspects of his management and working style (not just at Tesla but also at SpaceX and going back to PayPal) are incredibly problematic from the perspective of attempting to run a well functioning company. SpaceX succeeds mightily partly because there are many other forces there to counteract Musk's problems, which doesn't seem to be the case with Tesla. It's also worth noting that Tesla is on a lot shakier ground than many of its fans believe. Tesla's done a great deal to advance the technology of electric cars but the rest of the industry is catching up and Tesla has made some major mis-steps of late (such as with model 3 production). Yes, Tesla would be ill-served by replacing Musk with a typical empty-suit executive, but with a competent and pragmatic leader it would probably be just fine.
omarforgotpwd 8y ago
He will stay on as CEO.

alexandros 8y ago

you never know, the expanded board might actually be suicidal and choose to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. I don't think they're that deranged, but you never know.

threeseed 8y ago
Tesla doesn’t need Musk right now. They need a serious executive from a former car company who has experience in quiet, deliberate execution. Lots of companies are making cars without anywhere near the same levels of fanfare.
- reaperducer 8y ago
  Lots of companies are making cars without anywhere near the same levels of fanfare. I don't know much about the auto industry, and don't really follow Tesla, but I do know that Tesla stock is worth almost an order of magnitude more than General Motors.
  - asaph 8y ago
    Only by share price, which doesn't matter. By market cap, a far better (though still imperfect) measure of company value, GM is worth a little more. TSLA ~$45.5B GM ~$47B
  - thinkcontext 8y ago
    The stocks aren't really comparable. If you liquidated the companies GM would bring in many times Tesla. Tesla's value comes with a huge risk premium. Tesla was very close to going under a few months ago and it could still do so, if it doesn't execute right.
    - mrkstu 8y ago
      Do you really believe he couldn't raise 4-5 billion by calling friends at Google who share his vision? He wouldn't want to dilute his holdings, but if push came to shove he'd do it.
- meowface 8y ago
  I disagree. Musk is the face of the company and the brand. Consumers will be less interested if he's ousted against his will and no longer involved. Tesla might not die, but I don't think they'd be as successful without him.
  - threeseed 8y ago
    Pretty sure consumers would be happier about having a car that is available to buy and doesn’t have major quality issues.
    - stevew20 8y ago
      I disagree. Musk as CEO drove Tesla, against every estimate I've seen or heard of, to be profitable. Prior to musk, the cars didn't exist... So they were unavailable to buy. And I don't see how changing him out will fix quality issues, other than having a future CEO halt innovation in favor of bug hunting... Which would be the start of a quick end for Tesla. They are built on innovation.
      - threeseed 8y ago
        Musk is a great startup CEO. But what Tesla needs now is an enterprise CEO. And you can be an enterprise CEO and still innovate as a company eg. Apple, Microsoft, Mercedes-Benz.
        twblalock 8y ago
        > Musk is a great startup CEO. But what Tesla needs now is an enterprise CEO. I guess that’s the new meme about Musk now, but I see no reason to believe it. Plenty of startup CEOs have done well after their companies became enterprises. Larry Ellison and Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos are obvious examples. So is Steve Jobs, who came back to Apple after a decade of absence and rebuilt the company.
        s73v3r_ 8y ago
- profosaur 8y ago
  Do you think Tesla could have made it through production hell without Musk? Nobody knows the technical details of Tesla the way Musk does. Nobody would sleep in the factory like Musk does. Who else would have shipped a production line from Europe by air? The dude solves problems and puts out fires and keeps Tesla on the right path like nobody else. People like Elon Musk are not fungible.
  - gamblor956 8y ago
    The general consensus is that Tesla experienced production hell solely because of Musk. Moreover, their impending cash crunch is also due to Musk rushing through things rather than stepping back for a minute to spend quality time figuring out the details. People like Musk aren't just replaceable, they should be replaced so soon as possible to lookout the damage they do.
- thaumaturgy 8y ago
  > Lots of companies are making cars without anywhere near the same levels of fanfare. Could that be because almost all of those other cars are utterly unremarkable?
- blihp 8y ago
  Now that's an entertaining thought. Why not just set fire to all the company's assets right now and be done with it? 'Serious executives' are who you bring in when things are running smoothly and there's not much to screw up. Someone like Elon is needed to get it to a more stable point both product and revenue-wise.
- gruturo 8y ago
  Exactly like Apple didn't need Steve Jobs. Except they did.
- tobias3 8y ago
  At the very least he is a one person marketing machine making people buy pricy cars by a very new car brand using only his twitter account and his personal brand (and shooting one car at mars). Quick googling got me a VW ad budget of more than $6 billion. $40 million is nothing compared to that.
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  "They need a serious executive from a former car company who has experience in quiet, deliberate execution." Not really. They need that as a COO. Tesla has no real magic sauce. They are what they are because of the Musk Hype Machine and his ability to 'inspire' people to move to electric. If Tesla was based on some magic ingredients that were a real competitive advantage, I'd say let a 'quiet' CEO take over with a hot dog CMO. But they are still in 'founders mode' wherein the founder is a big factor in inspiring and motivating and that gives him a lot of power. You might be surprised to know that regular CEO's don't necessarily have all the power you think. They have to convince, fight internal battles, motivate. It's hard for them to do 'big things'. Musk is becoming a problem but not so much that he needs to go. He needs a really powerful COO who can go toe-to-toe with him - and he needs to get some f*ing sleep and go back to the 'old' Musk from 2010.
- pvelagal 8y ago
  There is nothing a traditional car company CEO would bring to the table that Tesla would need. All initiatives that Tesla is aiming for needs a visionary workaholic like Elon. Tesla needs Elon. He is irreplaceable.
- Udik 8y ago
  My humble opinion is that Tesla without Musk is worth a small fraction of its current valuation. It's a tiny car manufacturer in a world of hyper-competitive giants, and the only thing that kept it afloat is Musk's incredible drive.
- virtualritz 8y ago
  I disagree. Musk is to Tesla what Jobs was to Apple. Not in the same way ofc. but in the same sense. If Tesla lost Musk now it would likely be damaging to the company in similar ways as it was to Apple in the years after Jobs departure in 1985.
InclinedPlane 8y ago
I think that's a little overblown. Certainly Musk has his talents but they are not infinite and as we've seen he also brings a lot of disadvantages to the table as well. Not just these outbursts but many other aspects of his management and working style (not just at Tesla but also at SpaceX and going back to PayPal) are incredibly problematic from the perspective of attempting to run a well functioning company. SpaceX succeeds mightily partly because there are many other forces there to counteract Musk's problems, which doesn't seem to be the case with Tesla. It's also worth noting that Tesla is on a lot shakier ground than many of its fans believe. Tesla's done a great deal to advance the technology of electric cars but the rest of the industry is catching up and Tesla has made some major mis-steps of late (such as with model 3 production). Yes, Tesla would be ill-served by replacing Musk with a typical empty-suit executive, but with a competent and pragmatic leader it would probably be just fine.

omarforgotpwd 8y ago

He will stay on as CEO.