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Of course what Musk does matters. He's the CEO. And his erratic and reprehensible behaviour is degrading the Tesla brand as well as reaffirming the long held i

Of course what Musk does matters. He's the CEO. And his erratic and reprehensible behaviour is degrading the Tesla brand as well as reaffirming the long held idea amongst shareholders that he is too unstable to be running the company.

llsf 7y ago
Nobody is perfect. Mr. Musk shown that he could build from the ground up and manage several large companies. Could he be even better ? Maybe. But until Tesla and SpaceX can find someone unequivocally better than Mr. Musk, those companies will have to do (and maybe fail) with him.
woodandsteel 7y ago
I can think of no important way in which Tesla or SpaceX would be significantly more successful today if Musk had publicly communicated more like a standard CEO.
forgotmylogin2 7y ago
It's not degrading the Tesla brand though. Tesla is the second largest automaker in the world by market cap. Toyota, the only company larger than Tesla, was founded 65 years before Tesla. What Musk (and all Tesla employees) have built so far is nothing short of astounding. To imply he's leading them to ruin with his unfiltered twitter account could not be farther from the truth.
tbrock 7y ago
There would be no Tesla brand without him. The brand is quite literally "We are building electric cars, get the fuck out of our way!" so I think it's pretty on brand for him to be saying what he's saying. The man demands action, if he didn't he wouldn't be running the most ambitious companies on the planet.
- cma 7y ago
  "There would be no Tesla brand without him." > Founded as Tesla Motors, Tesla was incorporated on July 1, 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.
  - tbrock 7y ago
    Yeah and who knew about it? Nobody.
    - matthewbauer 7y ago
      Sure but being a good publicist doesn’t mean you’re a good CEO.
  - xeromal 7y ago
    What products did they have before Elon?
  - nickik 7y ago
    Before Elon Tesla was 2 guys with a piece of paper saying 'we should build Electric cars'. Elon provided most of the funding, and it wouldn't have gotten of the ground without him. Next Eberhard ran the company straight into the ground and Elon had to take over. Then Elon had to invest even more money to save the company. From there he made it one of the most valuable car companies in the world. Thus, anybody who thinks Tesla would actually exist without Elon is just a fool.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
icelancer 7y ago
>> And his erratic and reprehensible behaviour is degrading the Tesla brand as well as reaffirming the long held idea amongst shareholders that he is too unstable to be running the company. Good point. Stock is collapsing relative to SPY and the Q1 report was just brutal, wasn't it?
maxharris 7y ago
As Peter Thiel famously said, "Never bet against Elon Musk." I'm a shareholder. I expect that Elon's leadership will make my shares go up an incredible amount in the future. I have over half of my life savings at stake on TSLA, so I have a lot of skin in the game. If you think he's so bad, why don't you short his stock? It would be fun to check back in six months and compare how we did!
- raverbashing 7y ago
  > As Peter Thiel famously said, "Never bet against Elon Musk." Yes, because for better or worse Elon is "seeing the future" and has the capability to execute it. In a world where a lot of CxOs and Senior Executives "didn't believe" in remote work in January of this year, you see that the average group vision is poor and execution ability is even poorer
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    I think it's very helpful that Musk has an actual goal to achieve with his companies, that isn't "raking in tons of money" or "seeing the stocks soar". Most companies seem to be the real-world equivalent of clicker games. Do $whatever to make money. Use that money to do $whatever faster and better to make money. Ad infinitum. What that $whatever is is immaterial. I sometimes call these "toilet paper companies", i.e. companies that would happily pivot from whatever they're doing into selling toilet paper if they could make more money with it. But with TP being a quite sensitive topic these days, I guess I'll need to find a better analogy.
- jahaja 7y ago
  Well, this was just unfortunate timing. I hope it sorts itself out in six months for you.
nickik 7y ago
> as well as reaffirming the long held idea amongst shareholders that he is too unstable to be running the company. I don't know a single person that believes this. This is what people who hate Elon and Tesla believe about Tesla stockholders. Its honestly crazy if you look at what Tesla has done since Elon took over, to think that he is a problem. He is the opposite.

llsf 7y ago

Nobody is perfect. Mr. Musk shown that he could build from the ground up and manage several large companies. Could he be even better ? Maybe. But until Tesla and SpaceX can find someone unequivocally better than Mr. Musk, those companies will have to do (and maybe fail) with him.

woodandsteel 7y ago

I can think of no important way in which Tesla or SpaceX would be significantly more successful today if Musk had publicly communicated more like a standard CEO.

forgotmylogin2 7y ago

It's not degrading the Tesla brand though. Tesla is the second largest automaker in the world by market cap. Toyota, the only company larger than Tesla, was founded 65 years before Tesla. What Musk (and all Tesla employees) have built so far is nothing short of astounding. To imply he's leading them to ruin with his unfiltered twitter account could not be farther from the truth.

tbrock 7y ago

There would be no Tesla brand without him. The brand is quite literally "We are building electric cars, get the fuck out of our way!" so I think it's pretty on brand for him to be saying what he's saying. The man demands action, if he didn't he wouldn't be running the most ambitious companies on the planet.

cma 7y ago
"There would be no Tesla brand without him." > Founded as Tesla Motors, Tesla was incorporated on July 1, 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.
- tbrock 7y ago
  Yeah and who knew about it? Nobody.
  - matthewbauer 7y ago
    Sure but being a good publicist doesn’t mean you’re a good CEO.
- xeromal 7y ago
  What products did they have before Elon?
- nickik 7y ago
  Before Elon Tesla was 2 guys with a piece of paper saying 'we should build Electric cars'. Elon provided most of the funding, and it wouldn't have gotten of the ground without him. Next Eberhard ran the company straight into the ground and Elon had to take over. Then Elon had to invest even more money to save the company. From there he made it one of the most valuable car companies in the world. Thus, anybody who thinks Tesla would actually exist without Elon is just a fool.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]

icelancer 7y ago

>> And his erratic and reprehensible behaviour is degrading the Tesla brand as well as reaffirming the long held idea amongst shareholders that he is too unstable to be running the company. Good point. Stock is collapsing relative to SPY and the Q1 report was just brutal, wasn't it?

maxharris 7y ago

As Peter Thiel famously said, "Never bet against Elon Musk." I'm a shareholder. I expect that Elon's leadership will make my shares go up an incredible amount in the future. I have over half of my life savings at stake on TSLA, so I have a lot of skin in the game. If you think he's so bad, why don't you short his stock? It would be fun to check back in six months and compare how we did!

raverbashing 7y ago
> As Peter Thiel famously said, "Never bet against Elon Musk." Yes, because for better or worse Elon is "seeing the future" and has the capability to execute it. In a world where a lot of CxOs and Senior Executives "didn't believe" in remote work in January of this year, you see that the average group vision is poor and execution ability is even poorer
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  I think it's very helpful that Musk has an actual goal to achieve with his companies, that isn't "raking in tons of money" or "seeing the stocks soar". Most companies seem to be the real-world equivalent of clicker games. Do $whatever to make money. Use that money to do $whatever faster and better to make money. Ad infinitum. What that $whatever is is immaterial. I sometimes call these "toilet paper companies", i.e. companies that would happily pivot from whatever they're doing into selling toilet paper if they could make more money with it. But with TP being a quite sensitive topic these days, I guess I'll need to find a better analogy.
jahaja 7y ago
Well, this was just unfortunate timing. I hope it sorts itself out in six months for you.

nickik 7y ago

> as well as reaffirming the long held idea amongst shareholders that he is too unstable to be running the company. I don't know a single person that believes this. This is what people who hate Elon and Tesla believe about Tesla stockholders. Its honestly crazy if you look at what Tesla has done since Elon took over, to think that he is a problem. He is the opposite.