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Personal view here but this is insane. Sure many people ( even his own employees ) told him it was impossible. That does not mean Elon thought it was impossible

by leesec 8y ago

Personal view here but this is insane. Sure many people ( even his own employees ) told him it was impossible. That does not mean Elon thought it was impossible. People have been telling him that for forever now. Why are people so hellbent on attacking this wonderful innovative company?

deepGem 8y ago
Personal view again. I aM convinced that the shorts are behind these media smear campaigns. Scumbags are guaranteed to lose their bets and they are doing their best to minimise damage. They don’t care abou innovation or climate change. All thy care is about their fucking money. Sorry about the rant and yes I am long TSLA. I have had enough illogical Twitter spats with some noted shorts to come to this conclusion.
- InTheArena 8y ago
  It's not just shorts - We know that the Koch Brothers (as much as a boogyman as they normally are) are behind several PR campaigns, we know that Boeing has funded a set of campaigns that attacked Tesla. I remember when Falcon 9H launched, there a coordinate effort to bad-mouth SpaceX, because launching a Rocket with a car was "wasteful".... You kick over a hornets nest, you better have a lot of raid on hand. That said, the NYT has been consistently brutal to Tesla and SpaceX. Part of it is that they leave themselves open. They are being candidly honest and aggressive, and don't always make their goals.. But they shoot for the moon. If they miss, at least they make orbit, as opposed to plummeting back down to the ground.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- threeseed 8y ago
  This is fanciful. No short seller held a gun to Musk's head and told him to call people pedophiles, tweet about funding he never had, smoke weed on some idiot's podcast or have the personal life of a hip hop artist. Also just because they're innovative and are solving climate change doesn't mean we all just have to look away all the time.
  - deepGem 8y ago
    True and I don’t claim that musk is right always. He is human, makes mistakes, that doesn’t mean he is a criminal, which is what the shorts are implying with these smear campaigns.
busterarm 8y ago
His drill is the drill that will pierce the heavens! (HN has no sense of humor. It's a comment about his extreme optimism and success against what others think impossible.)
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
threeseed 8y ago
Even if we give Musk the benefit of the doubt about what he believes at minimum he is inept. CEOs should never be making public statements around sensitive issues like production numbers, funding etc without discussing it at length with PR and Legal first. And nobody is attacking Tesla for the sake of it. They are doing it because his behaviour is sometimes abhorrent, childish, unethical and it often encourages others to do the same. And just like with Theranos entrepreneurs should be doubly critical of others who drag us all down.
- leesec 8y ago
  I don't think Elon Musk is dragging us down. I think he's bringing us the future. Happy to be forgiving of his quirks since he's literally sacrificing his life to bring the world awesome stuff.
  - eiaoa 8y ago
    > I don't think Elon Musk is dragging us down. I think he's bringing us the future. Happy to be forgiving of his quirks since he's literally sacrificing his life to bring the world awesome stuff. So, Elon Musk is the tech-Jesus? He died on the SEC to take us to Mars?
  - macintux 8y ago
    He's also trying to destroy other people's lives (see: pedo guy) so don't be surprised if not everyone is willing to turn a blind eye to his "quirks".
  - village-idiot 8y ago
    I’ll never understand this hero worship stuff. Musk is not the lynchpin to getting to the future. His antics are actively hurting his ability to deliver EVs, including wasting company resources on avoidable legal troubles because he’s mad at short sellers. Killing yourself for your company is not admirable.
  - matwood 8y ago
    > Happy to be forgiving of his quirks since he's literally sacrificing his life to bring the world awesome stuff... and make insane amounts of money. Which is perfectly fine in my book, but lets get off this hero worship. Giving people a pass on acting poorly because of who they are is never okay.
chipotle_coyote 8y ago
As I've pointed out before, there's "Elon's crazy stuff that helps Tesla be innovative and trailblazing" and there's "Elon's crazy stuff that is has no upside for Tesla." Tesla fans -- to say nothing of Musk himself -- perhaps should be a little less defensive when people attack the crazy stuff with no upside, and I'd argue that he's been engaging in way too much of the "no upside" crazy stuff recently. This most recent hullabaloo may prove to be nothing -- companies overestimate projections all the time -- but if they wildly overestimated projections in a way they knew was misleading, that's an issue. "People have been telling Elon his dreams are crazy forever" is true, but it's not necessarily a solid defense.
wpietri 8y ago
I think this is extreme, but let me try to answer it anyhow: > Why are people so hellbent on attacking this wonderful innovative company? To me, the simple answer is that there's basically a Newton's Third Law for PR. Imagine Musk had done PR in the style of GM or Ford. That any public pronouncements were quiet and modest. That results mainly spoke for themselves. Had he done that, I don't think he'd have picked up nearly as many critics. But Musk has hyped Tesla to the heavens, creating an army of dedicated believers. This has given him great access to cheap capital, and an incredible amount of free media attention. But it also means that there are plenty of reasonable people who think that Tesla is not all that, and are tired of hearing about it. That also explains the shorts. GM's short position is 1/10th of Tesla's. For every dollar Musk's PR efforts push up Tesla's stock price, that's a dollar that could be made by somebody who thinks Musk is overoptimistic.
BinaryIdiot 8y ago
> That does not mean Elon thought it was impossible. If the people who are doing it tell him it's impossible and he reports that it is support to his shareholders that could very well be a crime because it may not be realistic. Misleading shareholders is a big deal. > Why are people so hellbent on attacking this wonderful innovative company? Possibly breaking the law has consequences and it needs to be investigated? I don't understand why so many in tech simply give Musk a pass just because he's done some really cool stuff. Let's not make a mockery out of our selves to come to someone's defense who may or may not deserve it. Wait and see what happens.
matwood 8y ago
> Why are people so hellbent on attacking this wonderful innovative company? Why are people so hellbent on defending this company no matter how many idiotic things they (Musk mostly) do? Almost 100% of these problems are caused by Musk himself.

by leesec 8y ago

deepGem 8y ago

Personal view again. I aM convinced that the shorts are behind these media smear campaigns. Scumbags are guaranteed to lose their bets and they are doing their best to minimise damage. They don’t care abou innovation or climate change. All thy care is about their fucking money. Sorry about the rant and yes I am long TSLA. I have had enough illogical Twitter spats with some noted shorts to come to this conclusion.

InTheArena 8y ago
It's not just shorts - We know that the Koch Brothers (as much as a boogyman as they normally are) are behind several PR campaigns, we know that Boeing has funded a set of campaigns that attacked Tesla. I remember when Falcon 9H launched, there a coordinate effort to bad-mouth SpaceX, because launching a Rocket with a car was "wasteful".... You kick over a hornets nest, you better have a lot of raid on hand. That said, the NYT has been consistently brutal to Tesla and SpaceX. Part of it is that they leave themselves open. They are being candidly honest and aggressive, and don't always make their goals.. But they shoot for the moon. If they miss, at least they make orbit, as opposed to plummeting back down to the ground.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
threeseed 8y ago
This is fanciful. No short seller held a gun to Musk's head and told him to call people pedophiles, tweet about funding he never had, smoke weed on some idiot's podcast or have the personal life of a hip hop artist. Also just because they're innovative and are solving climate change doesn't mean we all just have to look away all the time.
- deepGem 8y ago
  True and I don’t claim that musk is right always. He is human, makes mistakes, that doesn’t mean he is a criminal, which is what the shorts are implying with these smear campaigns.

busterarm 8y ago

His drill is the drill that will pierce the heavens! (HN has no sense of humor. It's a comment about his extreme optimism and success against what others think impossible.)

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

threeseed 8y ago

Even if we give Musk the benefit of the doubt about what he believes at minimum he is inept. CEOs should never be making public statements around sensitive issues like production numbers, funding etc without discussing it at length with PR and Legal first. And nobody is attacking Tesla for the sake of it. They are doing it because his behaviour is sometimes abhorrent, childish, unethical and it often encourages others to do the same. And just like with Theranos entrepreneurs should be doubly critical of others who drag us all down.

leesec 8y ago
I don't think Elon Musk is dragging us down. I think he's bringing us the future. Happy to be forgiving of his quirks since he's literally sacrificing his life to bring the world awesome stuff.
- eiaoa 8y ago
  > I don't think Elon Musk is dragging us down. I think he's bringing us the future. Happy to be forgiving of his quirks since he's literally sacrificing his life to bring the world awesome stuff. So, Elon Musk is the tech-Jesus? He died on the SEC to take us to Mars?
- macintux 8y ago
  He's also trying to destroy other people's lives (see: pedo guy) so don't be surprised if not everyone is willing to turn a blind eye to his "quirks".
- village-idiot 8y ago
  I’ll never understand this hero worship stuff. Musk is not the lynchpin to getting to the future. His antics are actively hurting his ability to deliver EVs, including wasting company resources on avoidable legal troubles because he’s mad at short sellers. Killing yourself for your company is not admirable.
- matwood 8y ago
  > Happy to be forgiving of his quirks since he's literally sacrificing his life to bring the world awesome stuff... and make insane amounts of money. Which is perfectly fine in my book, but lets get off this hero worship. Giving people a pass on acting poorly because of who they are is never okay.

chipotle_coyote 8y ago

As I've pointed out before, there's "Elon's crazy stuff that helps Tesla be innovative and trailblazing" and there's "Elon's crazy stuff that is has no upside for Tesla." Tesla fans -- to say nothing of Musk himself -- perhaps should be a little less defensive when people attack the crazy stuff with no upside, and I'd argue that he's been engaging in way too much of the "no upside" crazy stuff recently. This most recent hullabaloo may prove to be nothing -- companies overestimate projections all the time -- but if they wildly overestimated projections in a way they knew was misleading, that's an issue. "People have been telling Elon his dreams are crazy forever" is true, but it's not necessarily a solid defense.

wpietri 8y ago

I think this is extreme, but let me try to answer it anyhow: > Why are people so hellbent on attacking this wonderful innovative company? To me, the simple answer is that there's basically a Newton's Third Law for PR. Imagine Musk had done PR in the style of GM or Ford. That any public pronouncements were quiet and modest. That results mainly spoke for themselves. Had he done that, I don't think he'd have picked up nearly as many critics. But Musk has hyped Tesla to the heavens, creating an army of dedicated believers. This has given him great access to cheap capital, and an incredible amount of free media attention. But it also means that there are plenty of reasonable people who think that Tesla is not all that, and are tired of hearing about it. That also explains the shorts. GM's short position is 1/10th of Tesla's. For every dollar Musk's PR efforts push up Tesla's stock price, that's a dollar that could be made by somebody who thinks Musk is overoptimistic.

BinaryIdiot 8y ago

> That does not mean Elon thought it was impossible. If the people who are doing it tell him it's impossible and he reports that it is support to his shareholders that could very well be a crime because it may not be realistic. Misleading shareholders is a big deal. > Why are people so hellbent on attacking this wonderful innovative company? Possibly breaking the law has consequences and it needs to be investigated? I don't understand why so many in tech simply give Musk a pass just because he's done some really cool stuff. Let's not make a mockery out of our selves to come to someone's defense who may or may not deserve it. Wait and see what happens.

matwood 8y ago

> Why are people so hellbent on attacking this wonderful innovative company? Why are people so hellbent on defending this company no matter how many idiotic things they (Musk mostly) do? Almost 100% of these problems are caused by Musk himself.