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The Walton Family also happens to own much of First Solar, a competing provider of photovoltaic cells.
by markrote 7y ago
The Walton Family also happens to own much of First Solar, a competing provider of photovoltaic cells.
- camjohnson26 7y agoThe Walton family collectively is worth over $150 billion, it’s not surprising they have exposure to a solar company somewhere in their vast fortune. If you’re implying that this lawsuit has no merit because of that investment that seems like an incredibly shaky accusation.
- grecy 7y agoIt's a little curious they wouldn't choose to buy panels from a company they own.... don't you think?
- camjohnson26 7y agoHonestly not really.
- philipkglass 7y agoFirst Solar has acted as an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) firm for large ground-mounted solar farms, but they have never been in the rooftop solar installation business like SolarCity. First Solar's panels would also be an unusual choice for a rooftop installation even if a different installer handled the work. Rooftop solar installations typically call for high efficiency panels. First Solar makes lower efficiency, lower cost panels that maintain performance at elevated temperatures. Their panels are good for solar farms, particularly in hot climates. They don't have anything special to recommend their use in rooftop projects.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- potiuper 7y agoexcept catching any CdTe runoff in gutter traps
- sigstoat 7y agoseems unlikely that the issue would've risen to the level of walmart's board, so they might not have even heard about.
- ksherlock 7y agoBlatant nepotism and self dealing might be normal at WeWork and Tesla but some companies do have better corporate governance.
- whamlastxmas 7y agoYeah Walmart is really a bastion of moral integrity in corporate America
- briandear 7y agoExamples of where it’s not, in comparison to other similar companies?
- hedora 7y agoWalmart’s “controversy and criticism” section on Wikipedia links to its own page (which I’ve never seen before): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Walmart https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Walmart > Criticisms include charges of racial and gender discrimination,[1][2][3] foreign product sourcing, treatment of product suppliers, environmental practices,[4] the use of public subsidies, and the company's spying on its employees.[5]
- im3w1l 7y agoDespite having a high average quality, wikipedia is a very dangerous source for anything controversial. And in particular, using the existence of a criticism page to infer anything at all is ill-advised.
- kube-system 7y agoMany SV companies, and certainly tons of corporate America are subject to the same (or worse) criticisms.
- Fins 7y agoCompared to your average SV outfit like Tesla? It most likely is.
- Gustomaximus 7y agoNot at all. Obviously more to it but these are the 2 main reasons I see; 1) Walmart would have a procurement department. These guys probaly have no idea of the likely 1000's of investment companies the Walton family own. 2) As a listed company, Walmart procurement would contact jobs like this to the best offer, not to seperate companies that happen to be owned by shareholders.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- reitzensteinm 7y agoSo are you saying they staged seven fires, or that after 7 of 240 installations caught fire they only sued because of their conflicting interests? Tesla installed 29 MW of solar last quarter, compared to a peak of 253 MW at Solar City before the acquisition. First Solar, which isn't an apples to apples competitor since it specializes in utility scale, is on track to produce 1375 MW per quarter of panels this year. Tesla's solar business is dead. They might turn it around with the solar roof product, but if that succeeds it will make Tesla Energy even less of a competitor to First Solar, since it has zero relevance to utility scale solar. Even if Walmart had evil intent, why give Solar City the PR boost of hundreds of installations in the hope that they'll fail and they can later sue? It's easy to make a nice conspiratorial quip, but there's nothing of substance here. Jumping at every shadow just numbs you for when you really should be angry.
- csteubs 7y agoTalk about putting words in someone's mouth. The original comment merely points out an interesting note in that both parties have their own interest in solar. You make so many specific counter-claims to a simple sentence that it seems like you're responding to the wrong comment.
- IAmGraydon 7y agoThe post he was replying to was clearly implying foul play, as it would not have any relevance to the story otherwise. What I think is odd is the fact that you parse human language like a machine rather than a human. There is more to human language than the extremely literal interpretation of the words in a sentence. Implied meaning is one of those things.
- csteubs 7y ago> The Walton Family also happens to own much of First Solar, a competing provider of photovoltaic cells. Where is foul play implied in that sentence? To me it reads like more of an aside than an allegation of wrong doing. The stakes of this particular suit feel more "business-as-usual" than malicious or strategic.
- meritt 7y agoI'm sure they're also rampant short sellers in cahoots with Big Oil. Give me a fucking break. Tesla has had a lot of growing pains and they'll be a better company when you guys stop dismissing every single criticism and actually hold the company and Musk accountable for their missteps.
- perl4ever 7y agoIsn't the largest shareholder Vanguard, by far? My impression based on a cursory Googling is that Vanguard has about 130 million shares, whereas the largest individual shareholder, Jim Walton, only has about 10 million. In fact all of the top 10 shareholders of Walmart have more shares (>10M) than any of the Waltons, it appears: The Vanguard Group, Inc. SSgA Funds Management, Inc. BlackRock Fund Advisors Fidelity Management & Research Co Geode Capital Management LLC Northern Trust Investments, Inc. State Farm Investment Management Wellington Management Co. LLP T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP So maybe you should look at whatever the interests of the index fund providers are, and who runs them.
- markrote 7y agoLukas Walton owned 21% as of the start of the year, more than 3x Vanguard which owns 6.62%. I don't know about the rest of the Walton family - at one point the entire company was Walton owned - but that's nearly $1.5B owned by the company's "Significant Shareholder". I have no idea about the merits of this case but one should note that it's not uncommon for competing companies to sue each other.
- perl4ever 7y ago"Lukas Walton owned 21% as of the start of the year" Are you sure about that? Do you have an authoritative source? I get zero hits for Lukas among Wal-Mart shareholder disclosures on sec.gov. Jim Walton, by contrast, does show up. Also, Wal-Mart is trading for about $320B, so $1.5B is more like half a percent than twenty percent.
- microtherion 7y agoAnd Forbes lists Lukas' net worth at $17.6B, so unless he has a ton of other debt, he cannot possibly own more than about 5% of Wal-Mart.
- elithrar 7y agoThe parent is inferring that Lukas owns a non-insignificant stake of First Solar, a quasi-competitor of Solar City/Telsa, not Walmart themselves.
- heimatau 7y agoHmm. I didn't know this but that's a solid observation. Regardless, SolarCity probably did a poor installation job with cheap parts. They have a reputation among other Solar installers and it's not a good one.
- JohnJamesRambo 7y agoAre you implying they set fire to their own stores? Or that you want them to ignore the fires caused by Tesla’s panels?