4 ms·

He's just a pretty no-nonsense individual. Bureaucracy, and coded ways of doing things, seem to be irresistible to many. He types some words into a phone, pre

He's just a pretty no-nonsense individual. Bureaucracy, and coded ways of doing things, seem to be irresistible to many. He types some words into a phone, presses an enter key, and a decent subset of the world loses their minds. Golly gosh. If I were him, I'd be doing it for the amusement factor alone.

camjohnson26 8y ago
He's the CEO of one of the most valuable car companies and the words he speaks affect those trading on that information. Saying whatever he wants for entertainment is horribly irresponsible when his words have financial consequences for real people. The "funding secured" tweet wasn't harmless, it was a lie that gave a false valuation basis for Tesla at $420. If he was just an employee or outsider that wouldn't matter, but as the CEO he should know better.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- ryandrake 8y ago
  Unpopular opinion but I’m coming up pretty short on sympathy for someone trading stocks based on a few words in a tweet and then losing their shirt. These people are grownups and fully aware of the risks they are taking when they walk into the casino. Nobody is forcing them to read twitter or take it seriously as a source of investment advice. The $420 thing didn’t hurt grandma’s pension fund or long term buy-and-holders. It hurt day traders, options traders, shorts, and other gamblers.
  - camjohnson26 8y ago
    I'm sorry but this kind of thinking is so dangerous. Pumping hurts anyone who buys it after the pump, including grandma's pension fund, because now they're buying it at an artificial value. Traders have a right to accurate information from the officers of the company, which is the whole reason we have regulations in the first place.
    - Proziam 8y ago
      Pension funds don't buy the most shorted equity on the market, typically. He's right that the people most affected were in effect gamblers. They gambled on the 5k number happening or not and got creamed in aftermath.
  - CPLX 8y ago
    You don't want to live in a world where corporate officers of publicly traded companies can make completely false statements about funding events without severe consequences. You really just don't actually want that.
    - esotericn 8y ago
      Sure. But this can be dealt with via the legal system. Do the thing, get fined (obviously we should set the fine high enough that it's more than a speed bump), sorted. We don't want the thing to happen because it causes inefficiency in markets, bad outcomes, etc. Moralizing it doesn't really serve a purpose.
- esotericn 8y ago
  There's a gap in thinking here that I'm not really sure how to bridge, but I'll do my best. In that specific situation, he performed an action, which resulted in a disciplinary action based on some rule somewhere by the SEC. Some traders won, some lost. I've worked both as, and around traders for a decent period of time. It is what it is. As far as I'm concerned, it makes life exciting. I think any concept of 'harm' is pretty far removed from that. In short, yes, in life, things happen. Other things happen as a result of those things. We're all here to have fun, in the end.
- ryanmercer 8y ago
  >The "funding secured" tweet wasn't harmless, it was a lie that gave a false valuation basis for Tesla at $420. If you make a snap financial judgement based on a single tweet, you deserve to lose money.
  - nopriorarrests 8y ago
    Tesla explicitly declared in their official filings that Elon twitter is a source of material news about Tesla Inc.
    - ryanmercer 8y ago
      People got trolled (blatantly so, I and several friends laughed as soon as we saw the price) and deserved it.
- EpicEng 8y ago
  He's actually CEO of one of the _least_ valuable car companies, but I get your point.
  - ThirdFoundation 8y ago
    By market cap it is top 5...which is a common measure of value
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - beatgammit 8y ago
    How so? Tesla is worth more than Ford and GM.
    - EpicEng 8y ago
      Maybe in la la land where the only thing that matters is market cap or othe rmeasures that don't consider actual revenue.
agumonkey 8y ago
I trust his physics knowledge. But 'truth' is very dependent on how you model your world. If he was so rigorous he probably would have done his factory design properly instead of rushing things somehow randomly.

camjohnson26 8y ago

He's the CEO of one of the most valuable car companies and the words he speaks affect those trading on that information. Saying whatever he wants for entertainment is horribly irresponsible when his words have financial consequences for real people. The "funding secured" tweet wasn't harmless, it was a lie that gave a false valuation basis for Tesla at $420. If he was just an employee or outsider that wouldn't matter, but as the CEO he should know better.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
ryandrake 8y ago
Unpopular opinion but I’m coming up pretty short on sympathy for someone trading stocks based on a few words in a tweet and then losing their shirt. These people are grownups and fully aware of the risks they are taking when they walk into the casino. Nobody is forcing them to read twitter or take it seriously as a source of investment advice. The $420 thing didn’t hurt grandma’s pension fund or long term buy-and-holders. It hurt day traders, options traders, shorts, and other gamblers.
- camjohnson26 8y ago
  I'm sorry but this kind of thinking is so dangerous. Pumping hurts anyone who buys it after the pump, including grandma's pension fund, because now they're buying it at an artificial value. Traders have a right to accurate information from the officers of the company, which is the whole reason we have regulations in the first place.
  - Proziam 8y ago
    Pension funds don't buy the most shorted equity on the market, typically. He's right that the people most affected were in effect gamblers. They gambled on the 5k number happening or not and got creamed in aftermath.
- CPLX 8y ago
  You don't want to live in a world where corporate officers of publicly traded companies can make completely false statements about funding events without severe consequences. You really just don't actually want that.
  - esotericn 8y ago
    Sure. But this can be dealt with via the legal system. Do the thing, get fined (obviously we should set the fine high enough that it's more than a speed bump), sorted. We don't want the thing to happen because it causes inefficiency in markets, bad outcomes, etc. Moralizing it doesn't really serve a purpose.
esotericn 8y ago
There's a gap in thinking here that I'm not really sure how to bridge, but I'll do my best. In that specific situation, he performed an action, which resulted in a disciplinary action based on some rule somewhere by the SEC. Some traders won, some lost. I've worked both as, and around traders for a decent period of time. It is what it is. As far as I'm concerned, it makes life exciting. I think any concept of 'harm' is pretty far removed from that. In short, yes, in life, things happen. Other things happen as a result of those things. We're all here to have fun, in the end.
ryanmercer 8y ago
>The "funding secured" tweet wasn't harmless, it was a lie that gave a false valuation basis for Tesla at $420. If you make a snap financial judgement based on a single tweet, you deserve to lose money.
- nopriorarrests 8y ago
  Tesla explicitly declared in their official filings that Elon twitter is a source of material news about Tesla Inc.
  - ryanmercer 8y ago
    People got trolled (blatantly so, I and several friends laughed as soon as we saw the price) and deserved it.
EpicEng 8y ago
He's actually CEO of one of the _least_ valuable car companies, but I get your point.
- ThirdFoundation 8y ago
  By market cap it is top 5...which is a common measure of value
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- beatgammit 8y ago
  How so? Tesla is worth more than Ford and GM.
  - EpicEng 8y ago
    Maybe in la la land where the only thing that matters is market cap or othe rmeasures that don't consider actual revenue.

agumonkey 8y ago

I trust his physics knowledge. But 'truth' is very dependent on how you model your world. If he was so rigorous he probably would have done his factory design properly instead of rushing things somehow randomly.