46 ms·

People are skeptical of Tesla because people are skeptical of Elon. His dozens of misleading statements and half-truths over the years have caught up with him.

by golfer 8y ago

sandworm101 8y ago
The pot smoking and twitter insults also dont help.
- Derek_MK 8y ago
  Neither does the SEC investigation that got him for fraud EDIT: SEO > SEC - Context switching is hard
- mulmen 8y ago
  I don’t really see the problem with the pot smoking honestly, why is anyone wound up about that? Do you care if he drinks or smokes cigarettes? What about his workout routine? Twitter insults aren’t impressive.
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    Regardless of how you feel about smoking pot the CEO of a publicly traded company is expected to be prudent enough to avoid doing things that are federally illegal on camera with the beforehand knowledge that the footage will be made public. I personally don't care what Elon, or anyone does in his spare time but smoking pot on TV (or podcast, basically the same thing since both are going to be broadcast to viewers) shows a willingness to take risks with the wrong amount of upsides relative to their downsides and wall street doesn't like that.
    - mulmen 8y ago
      The Joe Rogan podcast is on national TV now? I thought the whole point of it was that it wasn’t a network show.
      - dragonwriter 8y ago
        > The Joe Rogan podcast is on national TV now? The part of it in discussion was, because of its content. Everything that is recorded and available outside of a narrowly controlled group is effectively national TV, in that if you do something that would be newsworthy, that's where it's going to end up. Anyone in a PR-sensitive role, including any CEO, ought to be aware of that.
        mulmen 8y ago
        The comment I replied to was edited after I replied. Musk didn’t smoke weed on a national broadcast but I agree he should be aware his actions anywhere could be reported at a national level.
      - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
        I thought he did it on some evening comedy show. I'm probably wrong about that.
        mulmen 8y ago
        He did it on the Joe Rogan podcast.
    - londons_explore 8y ago
      I wonder what wall Street would think of a company CEO going and buying a lottery ticket...
  - detaro 8y ago
    More relevant to SpaceX: It was notable that the CEO of a defense contractor publicly uses drugs, since that sector is fairly strict about these things. Smoking weed is a problem for security clearances etc?
  - Rebelgecko 8y ago
    Even though the acts themselves aren't that different, smoking a cigarette on camera doesn't potentially cause him to lose his security clearance (which could make him less effective at his job).
  - notahacker 8y ago
    I don't have a problem with drinking and am sure most CEOs drink at networking events considered part of their job, but I'd think a CEO showing off by downing a couple of shots on a comedian's podcast was a bit of a liability, even if it wasn't his idea. More so if their leadership was already under scrutiny and one of their businesses was entirely reliant on the patronage of an abstinence-obsessed government that wouldn't let their contractors' staff anywhere near their projects if they'd been known to have touched alcohol recently. And there's no defending the lame 420 joke which fits in the same bracket (the sort of joke that was a pretty pathetic way of getting lunchtime detention as a teenager, never mind a hefty fine and stripped of a measure of control of one of your companies). You can be 100% pro legalisation and in favour of CEOs smoking pot every day if it works for them and still think Musk's acted like an absolute idiot over it.
    - drcross 8y ago
      >I'd think a CEO showing off by downing a couple of shots on a comedian's podcast was a bit of a liability. You need to lighten up. Musk doesn't owe anything to anyone, if anything he garnered interest for selling more cars to the 18 million people that watched that podcast. If the CEO of <any fortune 500 company> was on the same podcast, do you think it would have been anywhere close to as entertaining?
      - heavyset_go 8y ago
        > Musk doesn't owe anything to anyone Investors and board members definitely think otherwise.
      - notahacker 8y ago
        > Musk doesn't owe anything to anyone, if anything he garnered interest for selling more cars to the 18 million people that watched that podcast He owes a lot to his shareholders, and wiped 9% off the value of Tesla with that podcast. If he has to be entertaining as well as reassuring them he's also laser focused on solving production challenges - and CEO of an engineering company is definitely a job description where being dull is no disadvantage - there were certainly better ways of doing it.
- hourislate 8y ago
  Perhaps the coke/stripper parties and Insider Trading on Wall ST would have been a better approach. I'm sure the SEC would have found that more appropriate and acceptable.
andrewtbham 8y ago
This narrative doesn't resonate with me. Forward looking statements are speculative, especially when you're innovating new technologies. I personally trust Elon Musk and I am a large investor. I don't expect him to hit all his targets, but I trust him to only raise money on the heels of good news.
- ivraatiems 8y ago
  Characterizing lying to the SEC and calling a Thai cave rescuer a "pedo" as such is stretching the definition of "forward-looking statement." Musk has always been largely bluster, but now the bluster is hurting people, and his companies as well. He's the biggest liability Tesla has. I don't know what he's done to earn my trust, or any investor's.
  - mav3rick 8y ago
    If bluster results in the first truly desirable EV cars and the first autonomous reusable rocket then more bluster please. The rage machine against Elon here is preposterous. At the end of the day , is he making the world a better place ?. No amount of contrived answers involving Twitter can change the vehement "Yes" to that question.
    - ivraatiems 8y ago
      > At the end of the day, is he making the world a better place? With rare exception, I don't subscribe to the idea of "key men" in general, and especially not in this case. Even if I did, I don't think that Musk is acting in a way that makes him an asset. I agree that Tesla, for instance, is doing good and important work. However, I think attributing Tesla's success, and net impact on the world to Musk alone is unsupported by evidence. That's because aside from initial investment/PR, and sufficient cult of personality to inspire people to work for him at the start, I don't see what Elon Musk is contributing to the company's work at this point. In fact, I see him as a liability and I think Tesla would be better off without him. Candidly, I also believe that if Musk was less driven by his own ego, as he appears to be, he'd see that and step aside.
nikofeyn 8y ago
musk isn’t the only reason i dislike tesla. they are overhyped by their customer base because the cars are “cool”, but i personally find the overall design and fit and finish to be lacking. they don’t feel like the expensive cars they are. tesla also has a feature called auto-pilot, which has killed people using it in non-insane scenarios given the name and marketing. i distrust their safety ratings. tesla also acts like they are the only game in town. they aren’t even the largest electric vehicle maker in the world.

People are skeptical of Tesla because people are skeptical of Elon. His dozens of misleading statements and half-truths over the years have caught up with him.

by golfer 8y ago

People are skeptical of Tesla because people are skeptical of Elon. His dozens of misleading statements and half-truths over the years have caught up with him.

sandworm101 8y ago

The pot smoking and twitter insults also dont help.

Derek_MK 8y ago
Neither does the SEC investigation that got him for fraud EDIT: SEO > SEC - Context switching is hard
mulmen 8y ago
I don’t really see the problem with the pot smoking honestly, why is anyone wound up about that? Do you care if he drinks or smokes cigarettes? What about his workout routine? Twitter insults aren’t impressive.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  Regardless of how you feel about smoking pot the CEO of a publicly traded company is expected to be prudent enough to avoid doing things that are federally illegal on camera with the beforehand knowledge that the footage will be made public. I personally don't care what Elon, or anyone does in his spare time but smoking pot on TV (or podcast, basically the same thing since both are going to be broadcast to viewers) shows a willingness to take risks with the wrong amount of upsides relative to their downsides and wall street doesn't like that.
  - mulmen 8y ago
    The Joe Rogan podcast is on national TV now? I thought the whole point of it was that it wasn’t a network show.
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      > The Joe Rogan podcast is on national TV now? The part of it in discussion was, because of its content. Everything that is recorded and available outside of a narrowly controlled group is effectively national TV, in that if you do something that would be newsworthy, that's where it's going to end up. Anyone in a PR-sensitive role, including any CEO, ought to be aware of that.
      - mulmen 8y ago
        The comment I replied to was edited after I replied. Musk didn’t smoke weed on a national broadcast but I agree he should be aware his actions anywhere could be reported at a national level.
    - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
      I thought he did it on some evening comedy show. I'm probably wrong about that.
      - mulmen 8y ago
        He did it on the Joe Rogan podcast.
  - londons_explore 8y ago
    I wonder what wall Street would think of a company CEO going and buying a lottery ticket...
- detaro 8y ago
  More relevant to SpaceX: It was notable that the CEO of a defense contractor publicly uses drugs, since that sector is fairly strict about these things. Smoking weed is a problem for security clearances etc?
- Rebelgecko 8y ago
  Even though the acts themselves aren't that different, smoking a cigarette on camera doesn't potentially cause him to lose his security clearance (which could make him less effective at his job).
- notahacker 8y ago
  I don't have a problem with drinking and am sure most CEOs drink at networking events considered part of their job, but I'd think a CEO showing off by downing a couple of shots on a comedian's podcast was a bit of a liability, even if it wasn't his idea. More so if their leadership was already under scrutiny and one of their businesses was entirely reliant on the patronage of an abstinence-obsessed government that wouldn't let their contractors' staff anywhere near their projects if they'd been known to have touched alcohol recently. And there's no defending the lame 420 joke which fits in the same bracket (the sort of joke that was a pretty pathetic way of getting lunchtime detention as a teenager, never mind a hefty fine and stripped of a measure of control of one of your companies). You can be 100% pro legalisation and in favour of CEOs smoking pot every day if it works for them and still think Musk's acted like an absolute idiot over it.
  - drcross 8y ago
    >I'd think a CEO showing off by downing a couple of shots on a comedian's podcast was a bit of a liability. You need to lighten up. Musk doesn't owe anything to anyone, if anything he garnered interest for selling more cars to the 18 million people that watched that podcast. If the CEO of <any fortune 500 company> was on the same podcast, do you think it would have been anywhere close to as entertaining?
    - heavyset_go 8y ago
      > Musk doesn't owe anything to anyone Investors and board members definitely think otherwise.
    - notahacker 8y ago
      > Musk doesn't owe anything to anyone, if anything he garnered interest for selling more cars to the 18 million people that watched that podcast He owes a lot to his shareholders, and wiped 9% off the value of Tesla with that podcast. If he has to be entertaining as well as reassuring them he's also laser focused on solving production challenges - and CEO of an engineering company is definitely a job description where being dull is no disadvantage - there were certainly better ways of doing it.
hourislate 8y ago
Perhaps the coke/stripper parties and Insider Trading on Wall ST would have been a better approach. I'm sure the SEC would have found that more appropriate and acceptable.

andrewtbham 8y ago

This narrative doesn't resonate with me. Forward looking statements are speculative, especially when you're innovating new technologies. I personally trust Elon Musk and I am a large investor. I don't expect him to hit all his targets, but I trust him to only raise money on the heels of good news.

ivraatiems 8y ago
Characterizing lying to the SEC and calling a Thai cave rescuer a "pedo" as such is stretching the definition of "forward-looking statement." Musk has always been largely bluster, but now the bluster is hurting people, and his companies as well. He's the biggest liability Tesla has. I don't know what he's done to earn my trust, or any investor's.
- mav3rick 8y ago
  If bluster results in the first truly desirable EV cars and the first autonomous reusable rocket then more bluster please. The rage machine against Elon here is preposterous. At the end of the day , is he making the world a better place ?. No amount of contrived answers involving Twitter can change the vehement "Yes" to that question.
  - ivraatiems 8y ago
    > At the end of the day, is he making the world a better place? With rare exception, I don't subscribe to the idea of "key men" in general, and especially not in this case. Even if I did, I don't think that Musk is acting in a way that makes him an asset. I agree that Tesla, for instance, is doing good and important work. However, I think attributing Tesla's success, and net impact on the world to Musk alone is unsupported by evidence. That's because aside from initial investment/PR, and sufficient cult of personality to inspire people to work for him at the start, I don't see what Elon Musk is contributing to the company's work at this point. In fact, I see him as a liability and I think Tesla would be better off without him. Candidly, I also believe that if Musk was less driven by his own ego, as he appears to be, he'd see that and step aside.

nikofeyn 8y ago

musk isn’t the only reason i dislike tesla. they are overhyped by their customer base because the cars are “cool”, but i personally find the overall design and fit and finish to be lacking. they don’t feel like the expensive cars they are. tesla also has a feature called auto-pilot, which has killed people using it in non-insane scenarios given the name and marketing. i distrust their safety ratings. tesla also acts like they are the only game in town. they aren’t even the largest electric vehicle maker in the world.