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Elon Musk’s Ultimatum to Tesla: Fight the S.E.C., or I Quit

161 points by prawn 8y ago

Apocryphon 8y ago
Is this him resigning in the same way Yukio Mishima committed suicide? Hyperbolic, sure, but the article has a Yale prof straight-up invoking Jonestown in describing this move.
- selimthegrim 8y ago
  Where's his dedicated young second? Kimbal?
- khazhou 8y ago
  > Is this him resigning in the same way Yukio Mishima committed suicide? This seems like an obscure reference (I am not Japanese). Care to explain?
  - striking 8y ago
    According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukio_Mishima https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukio_Mishima: In 1970, [Mishima] and three other members of his militia staged an attempted coup d'état when they seized control of a Japanese military base and took the commander hostage, then tried and failed to inspire a coup to restore the Emperor's pre-war powers, in accordance with Mishima's conceptualization of the Kokutai. Mishima then committed ritual suicide by seppuku. The coup attempt became known as the "Mishima Incident".
  - iamdbtoo 8y ago
    There is also a very good movie about this. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089603/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089603/
- zaroth 8y ago
  I assume the “Common Sense” title at the top of the page is NYT-speak for ”Editorial”.
- pvg 8y ago
  No? Mishima committed actual suicide, this is a quote by someone metaphorically describing the 'strategic plan' of the board, rather than 'this move'.
  - Apocryphon 8y ago
    I mean, a move so elaborate and outrageous, it’s nothing more than a showy way to be terminated on one’s own terms and to save face. Like Mishima’s quixotic coup.
olliej 8y ago
Ignoring everything else it does seem like he needs therapy of some kind, not for mental health reasons, but for learning to better control his impulsiveness. As to any of his other behaviors: ehn. I don’t have enough money to be effected by his antics :D
- refurb 8y ago
  Didn’t his ex-gf mention he was on acid during the “funding secured” fiasco? I wonder if drugs are contributing to it.
  - JoshCole 8y ago
    No, she didn't.
    - refurb 8y ago
      You’re right. It was a random comment by a friend of his gf who claimed to have visited his house during the crisis.
      - justtopost 8y ago
        Who also leaked some other info about elon, from his gfs texts, about things less concerning to investors, but indicitave that the allegations hold more weight than just some random comment.
  - roland00 8y ago
    I do not know if he was on drugs during the twitter thing (most recent 420), but Elon Musk in the last year (only in the last year) has been upfront about his trauma with his parent divorced and his father who was messed up and did not have anything close to a traditional parenting methods let alone boundaries with his children. Elon Musk has trauma, and it really shows on his personality. Everyone "loves" his innovator / save the world complex, but put another spin on it and it reaks of an "Atlas Personality / Complex" where you were forced to grow up too fast and you feel the whole world is on your shoulders (you must save it.)
ProAm 8y ago
Bye Elon
- dang 8y ago
  Could you please not post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News?
gok 8y ago
> They had passed on Thursday’s generous offer, and the S.E.C. felt compelled to extract greater concessions. The ban on Mr. Musk’s serving as chairman went from two years to three, and his fine doubled to $20 million. Tesla will also pay a $20 million fine, and Mr. Musk agreed to personally buy the same amount in Tesla stock. The extra year of not being chairman seems immaterial if threatening to quit got the board to shoot themselves in the foot, so he basically paid ~$10 million to loudly proclaim his innocence for 48 hours?
- kirillzubovsky 8y ago
  No, under the settlement he gets to claim perpetual innocence (ie. no intention of doing $420 on purpose). For him 10m is spare change, so long as it means he gets to maintain integrity. Also, as reported in another article, this non-admission of guilt makes it much harder for the DOJ to go after him with a criminal case.
  - village-idiot 8y ago
    $10m cash is absolutely not spare change for someone as leveraged as him, ditto for Tesla.
  - vilhelm_s 8y ago
    According to the article, the settlement does not let him proclaim innocence (but it doesn't require him to admit guilt). As I read the article, this part was the unchanged between the SEC's first offer and the eventual settlement.
    - desdiv 8y ago
      Exactly. The original deal was: 1. No admission of guilt 2. Bar from chairmanship for 2 years 3. $10 million fine for Musk and $10 million fine for Tesla The final deal was: 1. No admission of guilt 2. Bar from chairmanship for 3 years 3. $20 million fine for Musk and $20 million fine for Tesla So the 48 hour delay brought Musk nothing in return. [0] https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/29/17918252/elon-musk-tesla-sec-securities-fraud-lawsuit-settlement-fine-penalty https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/29/17918252/elon-musk-tesla-... [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/business/elon-musk-tesla-sec-deal.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/business/elon-musk-tesla-...
blihp 8y ago
Elon probably screwed himself here. The 'fight it', 'ok, settle', 'nevermind' will not play well on Wall Street. He had a much better chance either fighting it or settling but now he looks unstable. My guess is we'll be looking at a Tesla without Musk soon, unfortunately.
kirillzubovsky 8y ago
These articles about Elon are interesting to me because Tesla could not have become such a valuable car company in such a short time if it wasn't for Elon, and that includes his personality. Yet, many couch investors would prefer to have a CEO who is stable, boring and predictable. People want to put their money in for steady long-term returns, and not worry. Tesla is doing wild things which are causing crazy growth, but also crazy panic. It seems the market really wants Tesla to slow down so they can sell more stock to an average risk-averse consumer, but Elon wants to keep running light-speed, regardless of the short-term worry that it might create. Neither is wrong, they just have different priorities.
- deleted 8y ago
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- Steel_Phoenix 8y ago
  There is no shortage of boring automotive companies to invest in if that's what they want. Invest in Musk if you believe the future won't happen fast enough if you don't. A corporate board making all the decisions would have been long ago crushed by big oil or bigger manufacturers, or their patents bought and buried to continue the status-quo.
  - nikofeyn 8y ago
    how is tesla the future? they are still figuring out how to reliably manufacture a very small number of stagnant models, whereas every other car manufacturer iterates on multiple models every year, and it all works like clockwork and yields very reliable and safe cars. my kia optima sxl is much less than 50% of a tesla and yet has a higher fit and finish and is more safe.
    - Clomez 8y ago
      but manufacturing entirely new type of car? somebody gotta take the hit of being the first (most of the time, failing) one to try to do it on this scale. It's the only way forward. I think old and steady auto manufacturers are too stagnant to ever try their hand at such a risky but needed move.
rdl 8y ago
I thought the original deal included a ban on being a public company officer/director, and the new one was restricted to Tesla. Matters for SpaceX, which might go public, and which I hope he cares a lot more about than a car company.
- dbt00 8y ago
  That was the threat the SEC put in their public filing after Elon/Tesla turned down the first offer.
- ubernostrum 8y ago
  Both settlement offers included Musk stepping down as chairman for a period, but being able to remain as a director. The suit filed after he rejected the first settlement included the threat of banning him from serving as a director.
village-idiot 8y ago
Let’s be extremely clear here: That’s fucking crazy. Musk is acting like a crazy person. Financial regulators are extremely dangerous. They’re vindictive when spurned, have unlimited resources to fight it out, and are absolutely willing to string you up to prove a point. Rejecting a sweetheart deal and forcing your board to fight is nuts. Pride goeth before...
- pbreit 8y ago
  Based on the actuality I don’t think anything you wrote is accurate.
  - village-idiot 8y ago
    What part was innacurate?
- pbreit 8y ago
  Rejecting the deal proved not to be "nuts". Financial regulators aren't that dangerous. Musk wasn't that crazy as proved out. etc.
  - village-idiot 8y ago
    It was nuts, because the penalties increased. To be able to stand up against the SEC for 48 hours he paid another $10m (compared to the original deal), paid the board $20m (in purchased stock), and lost the chairmanship for 3 years instead of 2. That’s pretty expensive for 48 hours worth of grand standing. There’s no way to cast the decision to fight and then fold in a positive light. It would’ve been much easier, and introduced far less stock turmoil if he’d just accepted the first offer instead.
alphabettsy 8y ago
This makes no sense to me. If the reporting is correct he screwed up by sending the Tweet without having an actual deal or planning in place. I’m hugely inspired by the guy and think he’s brilliant to the point of being a bit of a fanboy, but I also think everyone should have to follow the law and play by the rules even if they are brilliant.
- deleted 8y ago
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- pbreit 8y ago
  He had planned it including a communication to the board. he had talked to at least 1 investor plus himself so felt he could round up the funding. His other company has overcome the shareholder limit. He said he was “considering” it. It was twitter. Shareholders are much better with him at the helm. Etc, etc.
  - jonathankoren 8y ago
    This is simply not true. Having a hunch you can get some money, is not securing funding. This is just like when Bart Simpson tells Milhouse he can read lips, and then admits he doesn't know what's being said. ("I thought you said you could read lips!" "I thought I could!")[0] It's fraud. He said "funding secured" after an initial 30 minute chat. That's not a deal. That's not even a verbal agreement to make an LOU. He also did this without telling anyone on the board. The SEC even released text messages from the board and staff that directly asked him after his tweet "Is this true?" Asserting shareholders are better with him, is highly debatable. He has run 3 companies simultaneously, put his brother in charge of one, and then when it started to fail, bailed it out with a merger with one of his other companies, then promptly spun up a third company because apparently he has to have three. The celebrated car company has serious logistics and manufacturing problems, and is deeply in debt, and doesn't make a profit. Ironically, what might be his most successful venture isn't even public. [0] https://deadhomersociety.com/2013/06/18/quote-of-the-day-1552/ https://deadhomersociety.com/2013/06/18/quote-of-the-day-155...
    - 8y ago
cperciva 8y ago
Is Elon Musk really an asset that Tesla needs to hold onto? I'll admit that he's a great salesman; but he's also a spoiled child who throws tantrums when he doesn't get his way. If Tesla wants to be taken seriously as a car company -- rather than as a maker of toys for people who have too much money on their hands -- they might well be better off calling his bluff.
- GW150914 8y ago
  Tesla is facing the prospect of needing to sell a honking load of stock at a discount to deal with their debt, and to do that they need a high stock price. While Musk appears to be a liability in many areas, he is the focus for a cult of personality that has made Tesla what it is, and has shown incredible talent for inflating the price of Tesla’s stock on that basis. So while Tesla as a healthy company without crushing impending debt would almost certainly be better off without him, Tesla as it is only really exits because of his presence. Long term they have to actually make a lot of money and stop hemorrhaging money, and get out of their death spiral. Short term the only way to do that is sell expensive stock, and that stock is expensive because of the cult of Musk.
  - notaki 8y ago
    Uh, yeah, ok.
    - memer 8y ago
      notaki? more like notaklue...
      - dang 8y ago
        We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
    - 8y ago
thrill 8y ago
If Elon has threatened his board, then they need to fire him, or resign themselves.
notaki 8y ago
This is just another negative Tesla article from the nytimes. Nothing new, and in the long run it doesn't matter. Elon and Tesla are changing the world for the better. Tesla is growing exponentially and produced 80k cars last quarter. That's what matters.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
dragosmocrii 8y ago
Personally, I think Elon Musk wants out of Tesla. The things he did lately, all point to this conclusion. Maybe he lost vision or interest in the company, but leaving from his own will would jeopardize the future of the company, since most of Tesla's backers are fans of him. Arranging himself an exit in this way, would make it look as he's the victim left with no choice but leave.
- qume 8y ago
  Very thought provoking. I'd like to add that this could be the case 'subconsciously' without him realizing or rationalizing it to himself.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- dragosmocrii 8y ago
  Continuing my original thought. This guy has been married to this company and it's what brought him the fame he has today. Surely, he was successful before starting Tesla, but at least from how I started to know about him, it's as Tesla's CEO.I can only imagine that subconsciously he feels very connected to the company. I've deliberately used "married to Tesla" because i wanted to make an analogy here. I know very well that some people can start acting very weird in a relationship if they don't feel committed anymore, but at the same time do not have the courage to have a clean exit. They would make all kind of stupid shit to make the perfect scenario to arrange an exit where they would be victimized and their ego would take minimum damage. In my opinion, Musk's personality matches the aforementioned type very well. Again, this is just my personal opinion, and food for thought, as someone's reply. Time will tell.
  - wil421 8y ago
    Elon didn’t start Tesla and I’m not really sure if he’s really a founder. I believe there was some legal issues regarding founders vs the series A “co-founders”.
    - 8y ago
sunstone 8y ago
Blah, blah blah, did anyone notice that Tesla pushed out 80,000 of the best cars on earth during the last quarter? Some people think that just happens by accident. If so the other car makers can only hope that they wind up in such an automotive accident. Musk has more than proved his capabilities between SpaceX, Tesla, Hyperloop and PayPal. OK he's a little idiosyncratic, well, driven people are like that. They are not like us.
samfisher83 8y ago
The deal sounded pretty good. They should just fire him. Maybe he is not the leader they need right now.Maybe he will mellow out after getting fired.
- arthur46363 8y ago
  May be Tesla will get bankrupt
apatters 8y ago
If the fine is intended to be punitive or act as a deterrent, it surely fails. Musk's net worth is over $20B, so a $20M fine is <0.1% of that. At this rate, he could violate securities law 999 more times and he'd still be a billionaire. It's a joke really, most Americans are lucky to even have a positive net worth. A traffic ticket hurts your average American much more than this fine hurts Musk and he committed a much larger crime than parking in the wrong spot.
- adventured 8y ago
  > most Americans are lucky to even have a positive net worth The median American has a positive net worth of around $55,000. That's higher than Germany or Sweden, and just below Finland. > A traffic ticket hurts your average American much more than this The average American has a positive net worth of over $300,000 and represents the fourth richest average of any nationality. As such, the average American would shrug off a parking ticket every bit as much as Musk would shrug off a $20m fine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_pe...
  - kilburn 8y ago
    These net worth figures don't take into account the differences in social models. The average German has been paying more taxes for their entire life. In exchange, their net worth won't be affected if they get cancer, they will get help if they go broke, etc. Comparing net worth figures directly doesn't sound fair to me given these differences...
    - adventured 8y ago
      Your premise doesn't explain why France - which has a far more expensive welfare state than Germany - has a median net worth roughly three times that of Germany and Sweden. Or why Belgium is nearly 4x that of Germany. Or why Italy is 3x that of Germany. And so on. It's very clearly a problem that specifically has to do with Germany. Even South Korea, which has only started to become affluent in the last two decades, is well ahead of Germany and Sweden (and the US median as well). You're also making the excellent point that Americans should be far worse off than Germans and Swedes, because they should be going broke constantly due to medical bills. And yet the American median wealth is still higher. The US spends as much on its welfare state as a percentage of its economy, as what Canada and Australia do, and is just behind Switzerland. The median American receives healthcare through their employer. That directly detracts from their income potential, and given how expensive US healthcare is (typically 60% to 80% more than other developed nations), it detracts in a very big way. By your way of thinking, we should account for that massive gap in cost of healthcare and how it impacts income figures (which impacts max savings potential). It's certainly not fair to account for Germans paying into taxes for eg healthcare, while ignoring that Americans lose out on income in the relationship with their employer due to the immense cost of healthcare in the US: that is the tax.
starbugs 8y ago
Musk is just a human like everyone else after all. You know like having emotions, making mistakes and stuff. How would you act if you'd come that far and then find yourself threatened by a horde of wild short-sellers and then the SEC? Even though his behavior isn't rational, it's understandable to a certain degree. What exactly does short-selling Tesla stock contribute to our well-being as a society? Even though I think it's correct that the SEC fights spreading false information on Twitter, it must be allowed to ask this question. I guess Musk should get some sleep, spare some of his fcks about all of this for later and get someone on his team who is competent enough to talk him out of certain things when it gets hot.
- legulere 8y ago
  He’s on an ego-trip and he’s out of control. Just to refresh your mind, he recently publicly accused someone of being a pedophile for criticizing some of his activities.
- bogomipz 8y ago
  >"How would you act if you'd come that far and then find yourself threatened by a horde of wild short-sellers and then the SEC?" You act like a leader, ignore it and get back to work.
bogomipz 8y ago
>"Mr. Musk threatened to resign on the spot if the board insisted that he and the company enter into the settlement. Not only that, he demanded the board publicly extol his integrity." This sounds as though the board is there to serve CEO. Isn't the purpose of the board to make sure the CEO is accountable to shareholders? Is the board just there to satisfy regulatory compliance? What am I missing?
paulsutter 8y ago
He approached it perfectly. I mean seriously, what’s the worst that could happen? He leaves and the company sells out to Apple? Sure, progress would slow but Apple wouldn’t bungle it. Meanwhile he would get to focus on the weightier innovation at SpaceX and The Boring Company (disclaimer, am a SpaceX shareholder and secretly this is exactly what I want)
- bicubic 8y ago
  You have SpaceX shares? How?
  - nordsieck 8y ago
    > You have SpaceX shares? How? Presumably he work(s|ed) there.
    - Flenser 8y ago
      There is a Paul Sutter at SpaceX: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-sutter-csp-44270370/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-sutter-csp-44270370/ But I think it's actually this Paul Sutter: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sutter/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sutter/ based on these comments: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&prefix&page=0&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=by:paulsutter%20altavista https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&prefix&page=0&sort=byD... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&prefix=false&page=0&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=by:paulsutter%20quantcast https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&prefix=false&page=0&so... So we're talking VC amounts equity, not employee stock.
  - mr_toad 8y ago
    Privately held limited liability corporations still have shares, but you can’t buy them on the stock exchange.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
Animats 8y ago
There used to be a sort of tradition that you started with the inexperienced startup CEO. Then, when the business became large, the board got someone with experience running a big company. That's changed in recent years. Page and Brin are back running Google, Jobs came back to Apple, and Zuckerberg is still in charge at Facebook. On the other hand, Uber got rid of their startup guy and got a manager type, who has been getting their losses under control, and something similar happened at Twitter. In both cases, the company had operational problems and cost problems, but plenty of users/customers. That's the Tesla situation. Product is OK. Customers are enthusiastic. Production is in trouble. Cost and labor hours per car are way too high. The financial situation isn't good. That's usually when the board and stockholders put in an operations-oriented CEO.
- starbugs 8y ago
  > That's the Tesla situation. Product is OK. Customers are enthusiastic. Production is in trouble. Cost and labor hours per car are way too high. The financial situation isn't good. That's usually when the board and stockholders put in an operations-oriented CEO. And in doing so risk that the company becomes another GE-like corporate which is no longer able to innovate and inspire people. Things have changed. Markets have changed. Innovation cycles have become much shorter.
  - aries1980 8y ago
    > Innovation cycles have become much shorter. Yes, but you need to build up a world-wide customer support network that is willing to learn these new innovations that fast at a modest rate. If Tesla would stay in the performance car segment, then the company doesn't need to scale the customer service that much. If you smash a bit your McLaren, you accept that only a handful of companies can fix it. But when you want to roll out and dominate the average joe market with the Model 3, you need to be able to sell it with a moderate maintenance cost. That can only happen if the local car mechanics are able to fix it, but this unlikely happen if every new model comes with radical changes.
    - justtopost 8y ago
jaimex2 8y ago
Whats their source for all this? I can't find it in the article anywhere.
- JoshCole 8y ago
  For a lot of popular press you can check out the confessed social media propoganda experiment @TeslaCharts for before-it-breaks-on-the-news coverage of whatever sourceless negative article you want. You can also use it to read deluded stock analysis talking points, since the goal of the twitter feed is to produce a profit via a short position on Tesla, many of the narratives are aimed at influencing stock analysis. It's hard to predict what will take hold though, since there are literally hundreds of negative narratives being pushed all the time. It's like a Nigerian prince scam. For example, the recent NYTimes article on the Tesla delivery hubs (cast as parking lots filled with cars that no one wants) were being pushed by the so-called 'shorty air force', a collection of accounts that look extremely similar on the surface to political influence campaigns perpetrated by the Russian Internet Research Agency. Naturally, the sources for this story didn't want to be identified. I think this stuff turns out to be surprisingly effective, due to the generational forces which influence news propagation. A grandmother loses her fortune when she messes up and gets scammed, but the news makes a bit of extra money due to increased attention when it publishes the right type of FUD. Just remember that the account is very explicitly telling you that it does everything it does with the goal of feeding confirmation bias and that they are conducting a social media experiment. Super disturbing results imo. I ended up writing representatives to get them to look at de-incentivizing bot-based influence campaigns run on the internet when I got a sense for the direction things were going. Kind of excited by the fact that the governor passed a law so quickly on the topic. Wheels were moving way earlier than my writing because of the interest in securing elections from similar threats.
  - jaimex2 8y ago
    Yeah. The fact that I got down-voted for just asking makes me think that crap actually works.
throwaway_1138 8y ago
Elon Musk is not crazy or some super genius calculating 20 steps ahead of everyone else - he is simply a man who does not like being pushed around and being told what to do. I'm no psychologist, but having read his biography and having dealt with many adults who were bullied as kids, it makes perfect sense from my experience as to why he is reacting the way he's reacting. I suspect that the perception (be it real or imagined) of being picked on, (by the SEC, by his board, by the short sellers, etc. etc.) might simply be too painful for him to allow any rational ( i.e. ego-free) thoughts to win out. This and his inflated ego (a lethal combination) may be the reason he's digging his heels in.
- erikb 8y ago
  Yes, that's what most people think at this point. If you look at pictures of his mother you also know who bullied him as a kid (and maybe even today).
_louisr_ 8y ago
Who cares what these dead media companies have to say? Journalism in the 21st century has a glut of integrity, passion, and ethics. Elon Musk has an outsized amount of every one of those traits. I don't want to hear a snippet of a heated board room conversation; I don't want to read a rumor about who the next chairman of Tesla could be; I don't want to read any sanctimonious, scowling & contemptuous trash about men so great it boggles the mind. Wake up, 21st century San Fransisco dwelling technophiles & web developers: We have an enormous glut of people willing to stand up for truth, freedom, and greatness in America, and maybe we should all cover for our great men when they misstep instead of sneering about their personal lives or "erratic behaviour". We are a country of individuals and we would do well to police our criticisms of the rare individual who can do the thing that needs to be done - accelerate the transition to sustainable energy. Comments on "the cult of Musk" or speculations be damned.
JoshCole 8y ago
It's so creepy that there is a Twitter account out there which has publicly confessed to be intentionally spreading hostile news for the purpose of feeding confirmation bias as a social media experiment and that the stories they are pushing are turning out to manipulate the news cycle to the extent that it does. It's actually disgusting, how successful they are. The entire movement is so suspect when you look at its loudest people. A bunch of Twitter accounts, many of them intentionally anonymized with troll names, and photoshopped images of Elon Musk as their profile picture. Hundreds upon hundreds of retweets of each other. Then mocking nearly every Musk twitter post with whataboutisms to drag audience to their filter bubble. Here is raw data about Tesla sales compared to the sales of every other electric vehicle manufacturer for the last several years: - https://insideevs.com/monthly-plug-in-sales-scorecard/ https://insideevs.com/monthly-plug-in-sales-scorecard/
- dayaz36 8y ago
  It's not just twitter it's every sm platform including hn. All the anti-musk/tesla rhetoric gets upvoted to the top even when it's blatant misinformation and right wing propaganda talking points. That's why I take all these comments with a grain of salt. I doubt all these are legit comments. There could be one person with dozens of accounts, it's not difficult to use a vpn to cover your tracks
erikb 8y ago
The headline is misdirecting. This was the news from last week. Now they have found a setllement.
yuhong 8y ago
The fun thing is that being a good CEO/board tweeter is not that difficult. Some guidelines and judgement would probably be good enough.
askaboutit 8y ago
As someone who doesn’t own a Tesla, but did purchase a very crappy jacket they sold in 2012. I can say without Elon I put the whole company in “meh” mode. The truck, the roadster, the 3. All great products. The sense of its technology advancements. These stem from what Elon and the chief designer want. You can sense it. It’s like a heartbeat on the design. Take Elon away. I’ll buy whatever dumb electric rolls off the lot. I’d only buy a Tesla car because I know that insanely dedicated, incredibly driven, “nutter” is still in charge of what happens. And the Easter eggs make the whole thing interesting. A normal CEO will never ok the things Elon does.
- oarfish 8y ago
  Where does you intimate knowledge about Musk's psyche stem from? Purely inferred form his public persona or do you have first-hand information? I ask because this sounds a bit like a cultist describing the cult leader.
  - DeonPenny 8y ago
    It sounds like a fan describing a celeb. Saying this isn't musk pscyche ignores the clear and consistent pattern his business and his business decision have.

161 points by prawn 8y ago

Is this him resigning in the same way Yukio Mishima committed suicide? Hyperbolic, sure, but the article has a Yale prof straight-up invoking Jonestown in describing this move.

selimthegrim 8y ago
Where's his dedicated young second? Kimbal?
khazhou 8y ago
> Is this him resigning in the same way Yukio Mishima committed suicide? This seems like an obscure reference (I am not Japanese). Care to explain?
- striking 8y ago
  According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukio_Mishima https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukio_Mishima: In 1970, [Mishima] and three other members of his militia staged an attempted coup d'état when they seized control of a Japanese military base and took the commander hostage, then tried and failed to inspire a coup to restore the Emperor's pre-war powers, in accordance with Mishima's conceptualization of the Kokutai. Mishima then committed ritual suicide by seppuku. The coup attempt became known as the "Mishima Incident".
- iamdbtoo 8y ago
  There is also a very good movie about this. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089603/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089603/
zaroth 8y ago
I assume the “Common Sense” title at the top of the page is NYT-speak for ”Editorial”.
pvg 8y ago
No? Mishima committed actual suicide, this is a quote by someone metaphorically describing the 'strategic plan' of the board, rather than 'this move'.
- Apocryphon 8y ago
  I mean, a move so elaborate and outrageous, it’s nothing more than a showy way to be terminated on one’s own terms and to save face. Like Mishima’s quixotic coup.

olliej 8y ago

Ignoring everything else it does seem like he needs therapy of some kind, not for mental health reasons, but for learning to better control his impulsiveness. As to any of his other behaviors: ehn. I don’t have enough money to be effected by his antics :D

refurb 8y ago
Didn’t his ex-gf mention he was on acid during the “funding secured” fiasco? I wonder if drugs are contributing to it.
- JoshCole 8y ago
  No, she didn't.
  - refurb 8y ago
    You’re right. It was a random comment by a friend of his gf who claimed to have visited his house during the crisis.
    - justtopost 8y ago
      Who also leaked some other info about elon, from his gfs texts, about things less concerning to investors, but indicitave that the allegations hold more weight than just some random comment.
- roland00 8y ago
  I do not know if he was on drugs during the twitter thing (most recent 420), but Elon Musk in the last year (only in the last year) has been upfront about his trauma with his parent divorced and his father who was messed up and did not have anything close to a traditional parenting methods let alone boundaries with his children. Elon Musk has trauma, and it really shows on his personality. Everyone "loves" his innovator / save the world complex, but put another spin on it and it reaks of an "Atlas Personality / Complex" where you were forced to grow up too fast and you feel the whole world is on your shoulders (you must save it.)

ProAm 8y ago

Bye Elon

dang 8y ago
Could you please not post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News?

gok 8y ago

> They had passed on Thursday’s generous offer, and the S.E.C. felt compelled to extract greater concessions. The ban on Mr. Musk’s serving as chairman went from two years to three, and his fine doubled to $20 million. Tesla will also pay a $20 million fine, and Mr. Musk agreed to personally buy the same amount in Tesla stock. The extra year of not being chairman seems immaterial if threatening to quit got the board to shoot themselves in the foot, so he basically paid ~$10 million to loudly proclaim his innocence for 48 hours?

kirillzubovsky 8y ago
No, under the settlement he gets to claim perpetual innocence (ie. no intention of doing $420 on purpose). For him 10m is spare change, so long as it means he gets to maintain integrity. Also, as reported in another article, this non-admission of guilt makes it much harder for the DOJ to go after him with a criminal case.
- village-idiot 8y ago
  $10m cash is absolutely not spare change for someone as leveraged as him, ditto for Tesla.
- vilhelm_s 8y ago
  According to the article, the settlement does not let him proclaim innocence (but it doesn't require him to admit guilt). As I read the article, this part was the unchanged between the SEC's first offer and the eventual settlement.
  - desdiv 8y ago
    Exactly. The original deal was: 1. No admission of guilt 2. Bar from chairmanship for 2 years 3. $10 million fine for Musk and $10 million fine for Tesla The final deal was: 1. No admission of guilt 2. Bar from chairmanship for 3 years 3. $20 million fine for Musk and $20 million fine for Tesla So the 48 hour delay brought Musk nothing in return. [0] https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/29/17918252/elon-musk-tesla-sec-securities-fraud-lawsuit-settlement-fine-penalty https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/29/17918252/elon-musk-tesla-... [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/business/elon-musk-tesla-sec-deal.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/business/elon-musk-tesla-...

blihp 8y ago

Elon probably screwed himself here. The 'fight it', 'ok, settle', 'nevermind' will not play well on Wall Street. He had a much better chance either fighting it or settling but now he looks unstable. My guess is we'll be looking at a Tesla without Musk soon, unfortunately.

kirillzubovsky 8y ago

These articles about Elon are interesting to me because Tesla could not have become such a valuable car company in such a short time if it wasn't for Elon, and that includes his personality. Yet, many couch investors would prefer to have a CEO who is stable, boring and predictable. People want to put their money in for steady long-term returns, and not worry. Tesla is doing wild things which are causing crazy growth, but also crazy panic. It seems the market really wants Tesla to slow down so they can sell more stock to an average risk-averse consumer, but Elon wants to keep running light-speed, regardless of the short-term worry that it might create. Neither is wrong, they just have different priorities.

deleted 8y ago
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Steel_Phoenix 8y ago
There is no shortage of boring automotive companies to invest in if that's what they want. Invest in Musk if you believe the future won't happen fast enough if you don't. A corporate board making all the decisions would have been long ago crushed by big oil or bigger manufacturers, or their patents bought and buried to continue the status-quo.
- nikofeyn 8y ago
  how is tesla the future? they are still figuring out how to reliably manufacture a very small number of stagnant models, whereas every other car manufacturer iterates on multiple models every year, and it all works like clockwork and yields very reliable and safe cars. my kia optima sxl is much less than 50% of a tesla and yet has a higher fit and finish and is more safe.
  - Clomez 8y ago
    but manufacturing entirely new type of car? somebody gotta take the hit of being the first (most of the time, failing) one to try to do it on this scale. It's the only way forward. I think old and steady auto manufacturers are too stagnant to ever try their hand at such a risky but needed move.

rdl 8y ago

I thought the original deal included a ban on being a public company officer/director, and the new one was restricted to Tesla. Matters for SpaceX, which might go public, and which I hope he cares a lot more about than a car company.

dbt00 8y ago
That was the threat the SEC put in their public filing after Elon/Tesla turned down the first offer.
ubernostrum 8y ago
Both settlement offers included Musk stepping down as chairman for a period, but being able to remain as a director. The suit filed after he rejected the first settlement included the threat of banning him from serving as a director.

village-idiot 8y ago

Let’s be extremely clear here: That’s fucking crazy. Musk is acting like a crazy person. Financial regulators are extremely dangerous. They’re vindictive when spurned, have unlimited resources to fight it out, and are absolutely willing to string you up to prove a point. Rejecting a sweetheart deal and forcing your board to fight is nuts. Pride goeth before...

pbreit 8y ago
Based on the actuality I don’t think anything you wrote is accurate.
- village-idiot 8y ago
  What part was innacurate?
pbreit 8y ago
Rejecting the deal proved not to be "nuts". Financial regulators aren't that dangerous. Musk wasn't that crazy as proved out. etc.
- village-idiot 8y ago
  It was nuts, because the penalties increased. To be able to stand up against the SEC for 48 hours he paid another $10m (compared to the original deal), paid the board $20m (in purchased stock), and lost the chairmanship for 3 years instead of 2. That’s pretty expensive for 48 hours worth of grand standing. There’s no way to cast the decision to fight and then fold in a positive light. It would’ve been much easier, and introduced far less stock turmoil if he’d just accepted the first offer instead.

alphabettsy 8y ago

This makes no sense to me. If the reporting is correct he screwed up by sending the Tweet without having an actual deal or planning in place. I’m hugely inspired by the guy and think he’s brilliant to the point of being a bit of a fanboy, but I also think everyone should have to follow the law and play by the rules even if they are brilliant.

deleted 8y ago
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pbreit 8y ago
He had planned it including a communication to the board. he had talked to at least 1 investor plus himself so felt he could round up the funding. His other company has overcome the shareholder limit. He said he was “considering” it. It was twitter. Shareholders are much better with him at the helm. Etc, etc.
- jonathankoren 8y ago
  This is simply not true. Having a hunch you can get some money, is not securing funding. This is just like when Bart Simpson tells Milhouse he can read lips, and then admits he doesn't know what's being said. ("I thought you said you could read lips!" "I thought I could!")[0] It's fraud. He said "funding secured" after an initial 30 minute chat. That's not a deal. That's not even a verbal agreement to make an LOU. He also did this without telling anyone on the board. The SEC even released text messages from the board and staff that directly asked him after his tweet "Is this true?" Asserting shareholders are better with him, is highly debatable. He has run 3 companies simultaneously, put his brother in charge of one, and then when it started to fail, bailed it out with a merger with one of his other companies, then promptly spun up a third company because apparently he has to have three. The celebrated car company has serious logistics and manufacturing problems, and is deeply in debt, and doesn't make a profit. Ironically, what might be his most successful venture isn't even public. [0] https://deadhomersociety.com/2013/06/18/quote-of-the-day-1552/ https://deadhomersociety.com/2013/06/18/quote-of-the-day-155...
  - 8y ago

cperciva 8y ago

Is Elon Musk really an asset that Tesla needs to hold onto? I'll admit that he's a great salesman; but he's also a spoiled child who throws tantrums when he doesn't get his way. If Tesla wants to be taken seriously as a car company -- rather than as a maker of toys for people who have too much money on their hands -- they might well be better off calling his bluff.

GW150914 8y ago
Tesla is facing the prospect of needing to sell a honking load of stock at a discount to deal with their debt, and to do that they need a high stock price. While Musk appears to be a liability in many areas, he is the focus for a cult of personality that has made Tesla what it is, and has shown incredible talent for inflating the price of Tesla’s stock on that basis. So while Tesla as a healthy company without crushing impending debt would almost certainly be better off without him, Tesla as it is only really exits because of his presence. Long term they have to actually make a lot of money and stop hemorrhaging money, and get out of their death spiral. Short term the only way to do that is sell expensive stock, and that stock is expensive because of the cult of Musk.
- notaki 8y ago
  Uh, yeah, ok.
  - memer 8y ago
    notaki? more like notaklue...
    - dang 8y ago
      We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
  - 8y ago

thrill 8y ago

If Elon has threatened his board, then they need to fire him, or resign themselves.

notaki 8y ago

This is just another negative Tesla article from the nytimes. Nothing new, and in the long run it doesn't matter. Elon and Tesla are changing the world for the better. Tesla is growing exponentially and produced 80k cars last quarter. That's what matters.

deleted 8y ago
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dragosmocrii 8y ago

Personally, I think Elon Musk wants out of Tesla. The things he did lately, all point to this conclusion. Maybe he lost vision or interest in the company, but leaving from his own will would jeopardize the future of the company, since most of Tesla's backers are fans of him. Arranging himself an exit in this way, would make it look as he's the victim left with no choice but leave.

qume 8y ago
Very thought provoking. I'd like to add that this could be the case 'subconsciously' without him realizing or rationalizing it to himself.
deleted 8y ago
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dragosmocrii 8y ago
Continuing my original thought. This guy has been married to this company and it's what brought him the fame he has today. Surely, he was successful before starting Tesla, but at least from how I started to know about him, it's as Tesla's CEO.I can only imagine that subconsciously he feels very connected to the company. I've deliberately used "married to Tesla" because i wanted to make an analogy here. I know very well that some people can start acting very weird in a relationship if they don't feel committed anymore, but at the same time do not have the courage to have a clean exit. They would make all kind of stupid shit to make the perfect scenario to arrange an exit where they would be victimized and their ego would take minimum damage. In my opinion, Musk's personality matches the aforementioned type very well. Again, this is just my personal opinion, and food for thought, as someone's reply. Time will tell.
- wil421 8y ago
  Elon didn’t start Tesla and I’m not really sure if he’s really a founder. I believe there was some legal issues regarding founders vs the series A “co-founders”.
  - 8y ago

sunstone 8y ago

Blah, blah blah, did anyone notice that Tesla pushed out 80,000 of the best cars on earth during the last quarter? Some people think that just happens by accident. If so the other car makers can only hope that they wind up in such an automotive accident. Musk has more than proved his capabilities between SpaceX, Tesla, Hyperloop and PayPal. OK he's a little idiosyncratic, well, driven people are like that. They are not like us.

samfisher83 8y ago

The deal sounded pretty good. They should just fire him. Maybe he is not the leader they need right now.Maybe he will mellow out after getting fired.

arthur46363 8y ago
May be Tesla will get bankrupt

apatters 8y ago

If the fine is intended to be punitive or act as a deterrent, it surely fails. Musk's net worth is over $20B, so a $20M fine is <0.1% of that. At this rate, he could violate securities law 999 more times and he'd still be a billionaire. It's a joke really, most Americans are lucky to even have a positive net worth. A traffic ticket hurts your average American much more than this fine hurts Musk and he committed a much larger crime than parking in the wrong spot.

adventured 8y ago
> most Americans are lucky to even have a positive net worth The median American has a positive net worth of around $55,000. That's higher than Germany or Sweden, and just below Finland. > A traffic ticket hurts your average American much more than this The average American has a positive net worth of over $300,000 and represents the fourth richest average of any nationality. As such, the average American would shrug off a parking ticket every bit as much as Musk would shrug off a $20m fine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_pe...
- kilburn 8y ago
  These net worth figures don't take into account the differences in social models. The average German has been paying more taxes for their entire life. In exchange, their net worth won't be affected if they get cancer, they will get help if they go broke, etc. Comparing net worth figures directly doesn't sound fair to me given these differences...
  - adventured 8y ago
    Your premise doesn't explain why France - which has a far more expensive welfare state than Germany - has a median net worth roughly three times that of Germany and Sweden. Or why Belgium is nearly 4x that of Germany. Or why Italy is 3x that of Germany. And so on. It's very clearly a problem that specifically has to do with Germany. Even South Korea, which has only started to become affluent in the last two decades, is well ahead of Germany and Sweden (and the US median as well). You're also making the excellent point that Americans should be far worse off than Germans and Swedes, because they should be going broke constantly due to medical bills. And yet the American median wealth is still higher. The US spends as much on its welfare state as a percentage of its economy, as what Canada and Australia do, and is just behind Switzerland. The median American receives healthcare through their employer. That directly detracts from their income potential, and given how expensive US healthcare is (typically 60% to 80% more than other developed nations), it detracts in a very big way. By your way of thinking, we should account for that massive gap in cost of healthcare and how it impacts income figures (which impacts max savings potential). It's certainly not fair to account for Germans paying into taxes for eg healthcare, while ignoring that Americans lose out on income in the relationship with their employer due to the immense cost of healthcare in the US: that is the tax.

starbugs 8y ago

Musk is just a human like everyone else after all. You know like having emotions, making mistakes and stuff. How would you act if you'd come that far and then find yourself threatened by a horde of wild short-sellers and then the SEC? Even though his behavior isn't rational, it's understandable to a certain degree. What exactly does short-selling Tesla stock contribute to our well-being as a society? Even though I think it's correct that the SEC fights spreading false information on Twitter, it must be allowed to ask this question. I guess Musk should get some sleep, spare some of his fcks about all of this for later and get someone on his team who is competent enough to talk him out of certain things when it gets hot.

legulere 8y ago
He’s on an ego-trip and he’s out of control. Just to refresh your mind, he recently publicly accused someone of being a pedophile for criticizing some of his activities.
bogomipz 8y ago
>"How would you act if you'd come that far and then find yourself threatened by a horde of wild short-sellers and then the SEC?" You act like a leader, ignore it and get back to work.

bogomipz 8y ago

>"Mr. Musk threatened to resign on the spot if the board insisted that he and the company enter into the settlement. Not only that, he demanded the board publicly extol his integrity." This sounds as though the board is there to serve CEO. Isn't the purpose of the board to make sure the CEO is accountable to shareholders? Is the board just there to satisfy regulatory compliance? What am I missing?

paulsutter 8y ago

He approached it perfectly. I mean seriously, what’s the worst that could happen? He leaves and the company sells out to Apple? Sure, progress would slow but Apple wouldn’t bungle it. Meanwhile he would get to focus on the weightier innovation at SpaceX and The Boring Company (disclaimer, am a SpaceX shareholder and secretly this is exactly what I want)

bicubic 8y ago
You have SpaceX shares? How?
- nordsieck 8y ago
  > You have SpaceX shares? How? Presumably he work(s|ed) there.
  - Flenser 8y ago
    There is a Paul Sutter at SpaceX: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-sutter-csp-44270370/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-sutter-csp-44270370/ But I think it's actually this Paul Sutter: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sutter/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sutter/ based on these comments: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&prefix&page=0&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=by:paulsutter%20altavista https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&prefix&page=0&sort=byD... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&prefix=false&page=0&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=by:paulsutter%20quantcast https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&prefix=false&page=0&so... So we're talking VC amounts equity, not employee stock.
- mr_toad 8y ago
  Privately held limited liability corporations still have shares, but you can’t buy them on the stock exchange.
deleted 8y ago
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Animats 8y ago

There used to be a sort of tradition that you started with the inexperienced startup CEO. Then, when the business became large, the board got someone with experience running a big company. That's changed in recent years. Page and Brin are back running Google, Jobs came back to Apple, and Zuckerberg is still in charge at Facebook. On the other hand, Uber got rid of their startup guy and got a manager type, who has been getting their losses under control, and something similar happened at Twitter. In both cases, the company had operational problems and cost problems, but plenty of users/customers. That's the Tesla situation. Product is OK. Customers are enthusiastic. Production is in trouble. Cost and labor hours per car are way too high. The financial situation isn't good. That's usually when the board and stockholders put in an operations-oriented CEO.

starbugs 8y ago
> That's the Tesla situation. Product is OK. Customers are enthusiastic. Production is in trouble. Cost and labor hours per car are way too high. The financial situation isn't good. That's usually when the board and stockholders put in an operations-oriented CEO. And in doing so risk that the company becomes another GE-like corporate which is no longer able to innovate and inspire people. Things have changed. Markets have changed. Innovation cycles have become much shorter.
- aries1980 8y ago
  > Innovation cycles have become much shorter. Yes, but you need to build up a world-wide customer support network that is willing to learn these new innovations that fast at a modest rate. If Tesla would stay in the performance car segment, then the company doesn't need to scale the customer service that much. If you smash a bit your McLaren, you accept that only a handful of companies can fix it. But when you want to roll out and dominate the average joe market with the Model 3, you need to be able to sell it with a moderate maintenance cost. That can only happen if the local car mechanics are able to fix it, but this unlikely happen if every new model comes with radical changes.
  - justtopost 8y ago

jaimex2 8y ago

Whats their source for all this? I can't find it in the article anywhere.

JoshCole 8y ago
For a lot of popular press you can check out the confessed social media propoganda experiment @TeslaCharts for before-it-breaks-on-the-news coverage of whatever sourceless negative article you want. You can also use it to read deluded stock analysis talking points, since the goal of the twitter feed is to produce a profit via a short position on Tesla, many of the narratives are aimed at influencing stock analysis. It's hard to predict what will take hold though, since there are literally hundreds of negative narratives being pushed all the time. It's like a Nigerian prince scam. For example, the recent NYTimes article on the Tesla delivery hubs (cast as parking lots filled with cars that no one wants) were being pushed by the so-called 'shorty air force', a collection of accounts that look extremely similar on the surface to political influence campaigns perpetrated by the Russian Internet Research Agency. Naturally, the sources for this story didn't want to be identified. I think this stuff turns out to be surprisingly effective, due to the generational forces which influence news propagation. A grandmother loses her fortune when she messes up and gets scammed, but the news makes a bit of extra money due to increased attention when it publishes the right type of FUD. Just remember that the account is very explicitly telling you that it does everything it does with the goal of feeding confirmation bias and that they are conducting a social media experiment. Super disturbing results imo. I ended up writing representatives to get them to look at de-incentivizing bot-based influence campaigns run on the internet when I got a sense for the direction things were going. Kind of excited by the fact that the governor passed a law so quickly on the topic. Wheels were moving way earlier than my writing because of the interest in securing elections from similar threats.
- jaimex2 8y ago
  Yeah. The fact that I got down-voted for just asking makes me think that crap actually works.

throwaway_1138 8y ago

Elon Musk is not crazy or some super genius calculating 20 steps ahead of everyone else - he is simply a man who does not like being pushed around and being told what to do. I'm no psychologist, but having read his biography and having dealt with many adults who were bullied as kids, it makes perfect sense from my experience as to why he is reacting the way he's reacting. I suspect that the perception (be it real or imagined) of being picked on, (by the SEC, by his board, by the short sellers, etc. etc.) might simply be too painful for him to allow any rational ( i.e. ego-free) thoughts to win out. This and his inflated ego (a lethal combination) may be the reason he's digging his heels in.

erikb 8y ago
Yes, that's what most people think at this point. If you look at pictures of his mother you also know who bullied him as a kid (and maybe even today).

_louisr_ 8y ago

Who cares what these dead media companies have to say? Journalism in the 21st century has a glut of integrity, passion, and ethics. Elon Musk has an outsized amount of every one of those traits. I don't want to hear a snippet of a heated board room conversation; I don't want to read a rumor about who the next chairman of Tesla could be; I don't want to read any sanctimonious, scowling & contemptuous trash about men so great it boggles the mind. Wake up, 21st century San Fransisco dwelling technophiles & web developers: We have an enormous glut of people willing to stand up for truth, freedom, and greatness in America, and maybe we should all cover for our great men when they misstep instead of sneering about their personal lives or "erratic behaviour". We are a country of individuals and we would do well to police our criticisms of the rare individual who can do the thing that needs to be done - accelerate the transition to sustainable energy. Comments on "the cult of Musk" or speculations be damned.

JoshCole 8y ago

It's so creepy that there is a Twitter account out there which has publicly confessed to be intentionally spreading hostile news for the purpose of feeding confirmation bias as a social media experiment and that the stories they are pushing are turning out to manipulate the news cycle to the extent that it does. It's actually disgusting, how successful they are. The entire movement is so suspect when you look at its loudest people. A bunch of Twitter accounts, many of them intentionally anonymized with troll names, and photoshopped images of Elon Musk as their profile picture. Hundreds upon hundreds of retweets of each other. Then mocking nearly every Musk twitter post with whataboutisms to drag audience to their filter bubble. Here is raw data about Tesla sales compared to the sales of every other electric vehicle manufacturer for the last several years: - https://insideevs.com/monthly-plug-in-sales-scorecard/ https://insideevs.com/monthly-plug-in-sales-scorecard/

dayaz36 8y ago
It's not just twitter it's every sm platform including hn. All the anti-musk/tesla rhetoric gets upvoted to the top even when it's blatant misinformation and right wing propaganda talking points. That's why I take all these comments with a grain of salt. I doubt all these are legit comments. There could be one person with dozens of accounts, it's not difficult to use a vpn to cover your tracks

erikb 8y ago

The headline is misdirecting. This was the news from last week. Now they have found a setllement.

yuhong 8y ago

The fun thing is that being a good CEO/board tweeter is not that difficult. Some guidelines and judgement would probably be good enough.

askaboutit 8y ago

As someone who doesn’t own a Tesla, but did purchase a very crappy jacket they sold in 2012. I can say without Elon I put the whole company in “meh” mode. The truck, the roadster, the 3. All great products. The sense of its technology advancements. These stem from what Elon and the chief designer want. You can sense it. It’s like a heartbeat on the design. Take Elon away. I’ll buy whatever dumb electric rolls off the lot. I’d only buy a Tesla car because I know that insanely dedicated, incredibly driven, “nutter” is still in charge of what happens. And the Easter eggs make the whole thing interesting. A normal CEO will never ok the things Elon does.

oarfish 8y ago
Where does you intimate knowledge about Musk's psyche stem from? Purely inferred form his public persona or do you have first-hand information? I ask because this sounds a bit like a cultist describing the cult leader.
- DeonPenny 8y ago
  It sounds like a fan describing a celeb. Saying this isn't musk pscyche ignores the clear and consistent pattern his business and his business decision have.