17 ms·

Misleading investors is one of Elon’s main jobs. And he’ll continue doing so, as we doesn’t face any consequences for it (expect for becoming ultra rich).

emteycz 5y ago
Are you a shareholder of TSLA? I am, and I am happy with Elon.
- justapassenger 5y ago
  You can generate great returns for investors and mislead them at the same time.
  - emteycz 5y ago
    I don't feel being misleaden. Yes, Elon is sometimes over hyping things. I don't mind. He makes extremely cool stuff which sells by its merit. I like the visionary talks because a company that never talks about the possibilities of future is super-boring and IMHO can't be as successful as Tesla is - even if it doesn't materialize in the specified time span or in its entirety - because there'd be nothing truly new, just linear change otherwise.
    - eganist 5y ago
      > I don't feel being misleaden. That doesn't mean you weren't. The rest of your comment almost reads like stockholm syndrome - or mostly just rationalizing being misled.
      - emteycz 5y ago
        Let me decide that, thanks. There's nothing to rationalize. Elon had some nice visionary talks which I like, but mostly don't care about - and I'm not going to be mad just because he said something will be in 3 years and it's in 6 or 9 - even 12 is good in my eyes, so what. I like his optimism much more than the """realism""" (read: pessimism) of mostly any other public company's management. His optimism is one of the primary things pushing Tesla forward - kill that and you kill the company. I mostly care about hard facts on the ground, and these go more than well enough. Along with my investment.
- pavlov 5y ago
  I've been both a shareholder (since 2013) and customer of Tesla, and probably won't buy one of their products again. I feel deceived about spending over $5k on that "full self-driving" package that three years later still does nothing of the sort. The fact that I made a little money on Elon's coattails doesn't make it OK for him to constantly lie to customers.
  - cactus2093 5y ago
    150x on your investment in 9 years is more than "a little money".
    - dwighttk 5y ago
      ~10x? Or were there a lot of splits my numbers aren’t showing?
      - cecilpl2 5y ago
        Depends on when you bought in 2013. I bought in early 2013 at $32 (pre-split), for about 200x. If you bought late in 2013 you probably paid ~$180, for only 30x.
    - pavlov 5y ago
      It was a very good return on a small investment. I mostly missed the post-pandemic boom selling too early, so I guess I made around 20-30x overall. Doesn't change my opinion of Musk's practices. If he's selling very expensive features that are actually donations into the hopes & dreams tip jar, it should be clearly marked as such.
  - Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
    I bought a Tesla in 2019 and chose not to buy FSD because I knew it wasn't implemented yet and won't be for several years. If you thought you were going to get FSD any time soon, you weren't paying attention.
    - 5y ago
- falcolas 5y ago
  Do you realize how short sighted this sounds? "I don't care what Elon does as long as it makes me money."
  - sillysaurusx 5y ago
    Why is that short sighted? That seems the opposite. If you had a money printer, wouldn't you give it a lot of freedom? Personally I'd draw the line at killing a dog or cat. Other than that, well... If it wanted to knock out a few walls, I'd just sigh and put up with the noise for a few months. (For context, I'm undecided about Elon. But none of the counterarguments to his behavior seem persuasive yet.)
    - falcolas 5y ago
      Because short term gains at the cost of long term sustainability is simply putting off problems for the future. Your money printer may print you money today, at the cost of putting you in jail for counterfitting tomorrow. It could result in the Mafia to come and break your legs to take it (and the money it printed) from you. Or greatly increase inflation (since mechanically, inflation is a result of more money being added than removed from circulation) in the future so your future earnings are worthless.
      - emteycz 5y ago
        You interpreted me wrong. What I'm saying is 1) that I care about the merit of the company (the products) much more than I care about what their talking heads say 2) that I don't think Elon's that bad as some say/ IMHO he's a semi-autistic person (don't know what his exact diagnosis is) who fucking loves technology and sometimes gets over-excited. I cut him some slack because he delivers - even if late and something's missing, well so what - it's still revolutionary and that's more than enough for me, everything on top of that is a bonus
claaams 5y ago
This. He lies constantly about his products, intentions and behaviors and faces no repercussions. But stocks go brr so who cares
- hanselot 5y ago
- andrewtbham 5y ago
  - andrewtbham 5y ago
- tim333 5y ago
  Some good products too.
- Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
  Other than lying about timelines (Which I'm not sure I'd really call lies, he just hasn't learned how to set realistic timing on goals), what has he lied about? Like, I know he hasn't delivered on FSD (And I know he won't for a long time, which is why I didn't buy FSD when I bought my Model 3 in 2019), and the Cybertruck and Roadster have been very delayed, what has he lied about?
  - unmole 5y ago
    > what has he lied about? "Funding secured"
  - philistine 5y ago
    You yourself have admitted he lied about timelines. This is not a different category of lying. It's straight up lying about your products. And the world is not simply black and white. It's morally gray. You can lie about something once in a while and get away with it. But if you consistently lie about FSD capabilities, it's a pattern of willful deception. https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/fsd-timeline-promises-summary.235180/ https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/fsd-timeline-promise...
slibhb 5y ago
Elon Musk is kind of obnoxious. He lies (or "exaggerates"). But what Tesla has done is insane. It's happened so quickly, and that's leaving aside the rockets. The hard evidence that we can build new things, that we can progress and build a future that's better than the present is so important. If it takes a flawed man to show us that, I'll take it. If you hate Elon Musk, consider probing your mind deeply to figure out why. It may just be that you're an Ayn Rand villain.
- jimnotgym 5y ago
  I may be seen as a villain to Ayn Rand disciples, mainly because I may point out I have seen people do amazing things without becoming billionaires at consumers expense.
  - nvggyjc 5y ago
    At consumer's expense? Nobody is forced to buy a Tesla, people do it because they like having a car more than money. You can argue that Tesla in particular is successful off the back of the taxpayer; are you advocating against government incentives for electric vehicles?
    - nullc 5y ago
      We're forced to share the road with them. Because Teslas are glass cannons with easily damaged body panels and a closed repair network that has extraordinary prices, their presence on the roads has a real impact on all of us. Who knows what costs we'll be exposed to as their somewhat suicidal 'self driving' functionality becomes exposed to more of the buysers they sold it to on the back of improbable promises (such as "your car will eventually pay for itself by acting as an antonymous taxi").
  - slibhb 5y ago
    I'm not an Ayn Rand disciple. But she had a point about certain people and how they view the world. Musk is rich on paper but the stocks are massively overvalued for various reasons. The idea that "billionaires are evil people who exploit innocent laborers" is false and it comes from a place of resentment.
mostertoaster 5y ago
I dont know about electric cars, but what Elon did with space x is simply incredible. Commercial space flights were becoming rarer and rarer out of the US, and now it is the most common. The price of space flight while still high, was reduced by a huge percentage. I’m sure he told many lies to get there. But economics and physics don’t really lie. I like him for the reasons I like Kanye, Bernie Sanders, and Trump (though I only voted for the first). Just says crazy things, but some of them are just truths that we’ve all chosen to ignore it don’t like to accept.
- OscarCunningham 5y ago
  If only there was a way to filter the signal from the noise. Maybe if we locked them in a room together?
  - mostertoaster 5y ago
    I would love to be a fly on that wall. Elon, Bernie, Kanye, Trump - most things they say are just noise.
- dehrmann 5y ago
  > I dont know about electric cars There was that time Tesla bought Musk's cousin's failing rooftop solar company.
  - mostertoaster 5y ago
    Yeah seems suspect huh?
- izzydata 5y ago
  What did Elon do exactly beyond take credit for the work of talented engineers?
  - Kranar 5y ago
    Provide an environment where those talented engineers could accomplish something no other environment allowed them to. It's not like there aren't talented people at Boeing or Lockheed and it's not like those talented people just came out of thin air, it takes amazing leadership and a strong vision to bring talented people together to accomplish something that to this day no other rocket company is still capable of doing.
01100011 5y ago
The SEC has been asleep for years now. Every week we see market whales pulling gamma squeezes and pumping tech stocks higher and higher. The market is a joke at this point.
- zionic 5y ago
  Asleep? SEC has been screwing small investors for as long as it’s been around. Screw the SEC, just another in a long list of government agencies that shouldn’t exist.
  - cguess 5y ago
    You're big into crypto, aren't you?
    - zionic 5y ago
      I’ll bite. Yes I am, but on the other hand none of the SEC’s decisions have impacted me negatively. I have never held XRP for example, so while I dislike them it’s entirely because I don’t believe they should exist in the first place, they haven’t cost me money.
  - Loughla 5y ago
    >just another in a long list of government agencies that shouldn’t exist. I would add 'in its current form' onto the end of that. The problem is, we have these agencies, so we can say, "look, we're fixing the problem," but then we provide them neither the power nor funding to really do anything but be annoying. I am firmly convinced this is by design. One side gets to say, "look we fixed it" and the other gets to say, "look it doesn't work and never will," and nothing changes.

emteycz 5y ago

Are you a shareholder of TSLA? I am, and I am happy with Elon.

justapassenger 5y ago
You can generate great returns for investors and mislead them at the same time.
- emteycz 5y ago
  I don't feel being misleaden. Yes, Elon is sometimes over hyping things. I don't mind. He makes extremely cool stuff which sells by its merit. I like the visionary talks because a company that never talks about the possibilities of future is super-boring and IMHO can't be as successful as Tesla is - even if it doesn't materialize in the specified time span or in its entirety - because there'd be nothing truly new, just linear change otherwise.
  - eganist 5y ago
    > I don't feel being misleaden. That doesn't mean you weren't. The rest of your comment almost reads like stockholm syndrome - or mostly just rationalizing being misled.
    - emteycz 5y ago
      Let me decide that, thanks. There's nothing to rationalize. Elon had some nice visionary talks which I like, but mostly don't care about - and I'm not going to be mad just because he said something will be in 3 years and it's in 6 or 9 - even 12 is good in my eyes, so what. I like his optimism much more than the """realism""" (read: pessimism) of mostly any other public company's management. His optimism is one of the primary things pushing Tesla forward - kill that and you kill the company. I mostly care about hard facts on the ground, and these go more than well enough. Along with my investment.
pavlov 5y ago
I've been both a shareholder (since 2013) and customer of Tesla, and probably won't buy one of their products again. I feel deceived about spending over $5k on that "full self-driving" package that three years later still does nothing of the sort. The fact that I made a little money on Elon's coattails doesn't make it OK for him to constantly lie to customers.
- cactus2093 5y ago
  150x on your investment in 9 years is more than "a little money".
  - dwighttk 5y ago
    ~10x? Or were there a lot of splits my numbers aren’t showing?
    - cecilpl2 5y ago
      Depends on when you bought in 2013. I bought in early 2013 at $32 (pre-split), for about 200x. If you bought late in 2013 you probably paid ~$180, for only 30x.
  - pavlov 5y ago
    It was a very good return on a small investment. I mostly missed the post-pandemic boom selling too early, so I guess I made around 20-30x overall. Doesn't change my opinion of Musk's practices. If he's selling very expensive features that are actually donations into the hopes & dreams tip jar, it should be clearly marked as such.
- Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
  I bought a Tesla in 2019 and chose not to buy FSD because I knew it wasn't implemented yet and won't be for several years. If you thought you were going to get FSD any time soon, you weren't paying attention.
  - 5y ago
falcolas 5y ago
Do you realize how short sighted this sounds? "I don't care what Elon does as long as it makes me money."
- sillysaurusx 5y ago
  Why is that short sighted? That seems the opposite. If you had a money printer, wouldn't you give it a lot of freedom? Personally I'd draw the line at killing a dog or cat. Other than that, well... If it wanted to knock out a few walls, I'd just sigh and put up with the noise for a few months. (For context, I'm undecided about Elon. But none of the counterarguments to his behavior seem persuasive yet.)
  - falcolas 5y ago
    Because short term gains at the cost of long term sustainability is simply putting off problems for the future. Your money printer may print you money today, at the cost of putting you in jail for counterfitting tomorrow. It could result in the Mafia to come and break your legs to take it (and the money it printed) from you. Or greatly increase inflation (since mechanically, inflation is a result of more money being added than removed from circulation) in the future so your future earnings are worthless.
    - emteycz 5y ago
      You interpreted me wrong. What I'm saying is 1) that I care about the merit of the company (the products) much more than I care about what their talking heads say 2) that I don't think Elon's that bad as some say/ IMHO he's a semi-autistic person (don't know what his exact diagnosis is) who fucking loves technology and sometimes gets over-excited. I cut him some slack because he delivers - even if late and something's missing, well so what - it's still revolutionary and that's more than enough for me, everything on top of that is a bonus

claaams 5y ago

This. He lies constantly about his products, intentions and behaviors and faces no repercussions. But stocks go brr so who cares

hanselot 5y ago
andrewtbham 5y ago
- andrewtbham 5y ago
tim333 5y ago
Some good products too.
Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
Other than lying about timelines (Which I'm not sure I'd really call lies, he just hasn't learned how to set realistic timing on goals), what has he lied about? Like, I know he hasn't delivered on FSD (And I know he won't for a long time, which is why I didn't buy FSD when I bought my Model 3 in 2019), and the Cybertruck and Roadster have been very delayed, what has he lied about?
- unmole 5y ago
  > what has he lied about? "Funding secured"
- philistine 5y ago
  You yourself have admitted he lied about timelines. This is not a different category of lying. It's straight up lying about your products. And the world is not simply black and white. It's morally gray. You can lie about something once in a while and get away with it. But if you consistently lie about FSD capabilities, it's a pattern of willful deception. https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/fsd-timeline-promises-summary.235180/ https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/fsd-timeline-promise...

slibhb 5y ago

Elon Musk is kind of obnoxious. He lies (or "exaggerates"). But what Tesla has done is insane. It's happened so quickly, and that's leaving aside the rockets. The hard evidence that we can build new things, that we can progress and build a future that's better than the present is so important. If it takes a flawed man to show us that, I'll take it. If you hate Elon Musk, consider probing your mind deeply to figure out why. It may just be that you're an Ayn Rand villain.

jimnotgym 5y ago
I may be seen as a villain to Ayn Rand disciples, mainly because I may point out I have seen people do amazing things without becoming billionaires at consumers expense.
- nvggyjc 5y ago
  At consumer's expense? Nobody is forced to buy a Tesla, people do it because they like having a car more than money. You can argue that Tesla in particular is successful off the back of the taxpayer; are you advocating against government incentives for electric vehicles?
  - nullc 5y ago
    We're forced to share the road with them. Because Teslas are glass cannons with easily damaged body panels and a closed repair network that has extraordinary prices, their presence on the roads has a real impact on all of us. Who knows what costs we'll be exposed to as their somewhat suicidal 'self driving' functionality becomes exposed to more of the buysers they sold it to on the back of improbable promises (such as "your car will eventually pay for itself by acting as an antonymous taxi").
- slibhb 5y ago
  I'm not an Ayn Rand disciple. But she had a point about certain people and how they view the world. Musk is rich on paper but the stocks are massively overvalued for various reasons. The idea that "billionaires are evil people who exploit innocent laborers" is false and it comes from a place of resentment.

mostertoaster 5y ago

I dont know about electric cars, but what Elon did with space x is simply incredible. Commercial space flights were becoming rarer and rarer out of the US, and now it is the most common. The price of space flight while still high, was reduced by a huge percentage. I’m sure he told many lies to get there. But economics and physics don’t really lie. I like him for the reasons I like Kanye, Bernie Sanders, and Trump (though I only voted for the first). Just says crazy things, but some of them are just truths that we’ve all chosen to ignore it don’t like to accept.

OscarCunningham 5y ago
If only there was a way to filter the signal from the noise. Maybe if we locked them in a room together?
- mostertoaster 5y ago
  I would love to be a fly on that wall. Elon, Bernie, Kanye, Trump - most things they say are just noise.
dehrmann 5y ago
> I dont know about electric cars There was that time Tesla bought Musk's cousin's failing rooftop solar company.
- mostertoaster 5y ago
  Yeah seems suspect huh?
izzydata 5y ago
What did Elon do exactly beyond take credit for the work of talented engineers?
- Kranar 5y ago
  Provide an environment where those talented engineers could accomplish something no other environment allowed them to. It's not like there aren't talented people at Boeing or Lockheed and it's not like those talented people just came out of thin air, it takes amazing leadership and a strong vision to bring talented people together to accomplish something that to this day no other rocket company is still capable of doing.

01100011 5y ago

The SEC has been asleep for years now. Every week we see market whales pulling gamma squeezes and pumping tech stocks higher and higher. The market is a joke at this point.

zionic 5y ago
Asleep? SEC has been screwing small investors for as long as it’s been around. Screw the SEC, just another in a long list of government agencies that shouldn’t exist.
- cguess 5y ago
  You're big into crypto, aren't you?
  - zionic 5y ago
    I’ll bite. Yes I am, but on the other hand none of the SEC’s decisions have impacted me negatively. I have never held XRP for example, so while I dislike them it’s entirely because I don’t believe they should exist in the first place, they haven’t cost me money.
- Loughla 5y ago
  >just another in a long list of government agencies that shouldn’t exist. I would add 'in its current form' onto the end of that. The problem is, we have these agencies, so we can say, "look, we're fixing the problem," but then we provide them neither the power nor funding to really do anything but be annoying. I am firmly convinced this is by design. One side gets to say, "look we fixed it" and the other gets to say, "look it doesn't work and never will," and nothing changes.