4 ms·

Once Tesla starts advertising on Twitter, just you watch all those car companies will come right back.

by foobarian 4y ago

chinathrow 4y ago
I thought Tesla is not doing advertising. Has that changed?
- _hcuq 4y ago
  It will now. One of Elon’s tricks is moving money between his companies. Often at the expense of shareholders.
  - thoughtstheseus 4y ago
    This is a serious allegation, can you provide supporting information?
    - xadhominemx 4y ago
      Well Tesla bailed out SolarCity, a clear conflict of interest. Elon won the Tesla shareholder suit, basically on a technicality, but everyone can see what actually happened there.
      - thoughtstheseus 4y ago
        That’s not moving money that’s buying assets.
    - gamblor956 4y ago
      SolarCity was purchased to bail out Elon's cousins from their financial mismanagement (which was largely due to them listening to Elon about how to run the company). Boring Co used SpaceX and Tesla engineers for preliminary engineering work (and also for the Vegas tunnel) without reimbursing either company, and Boring Co used SpaceX's Hawthorne parking lot for its original test tube without leasing the land. BoringCo has not paid for the Teslas it uses, it received them for free. (As Tesla claims not to spend any money on marketing, giving these Teslas could not have been a marketing expense for Tesla unless they deliberately misrepresenting their financial statements, which is an entirely separate can of worms.) Tesla didn't pay SpaceX to send a Tesla into space. (See above.) Twitter used Tesla engineers, without reimbursement, to evaluate code just last week.
      - thoughtstheseus 4y ago
        This is not moving money.
eatonphil 4y ago
Advertising spend is material info and if your competitor's CEO now potentially has access to that that's legitimate cause for concern. From what I understand, they are going to wait until it's clear how much of a conflict of interest him being CEO of Twitter (in terms of advertising) + Tesla is.
- chii 4y ago
  > a conflict of interest why would it be a conflict of interest, unless the CEO of twitter is deliberately stopping car companies from advertising on twitter?
  - Macha 4y ago
    Because the CEO of Twitter will receive information on what their competitors are spending on advertising and can use that to calibrate decisions as CEO of Tesla, while the CEOs of the competing car companies do not get any such info
Angostura 4y ago
I don't think so. They'll just see them for what they are - house ads designed to fill up unused inventory.
csours 4y ago
Musk's personal account on Twitter is and was the Marketing Department for Tesla. They don't have to start advertising, because they have never had to buy ads, people are willing to talk about them for free, and a lot of that discourse was due to Musk's tweets.
- solarkraft 4y ago
  Yeah sure, but he wants to funnel money into Twitter somehow.
  - csours 4y ago
    Feel free to skip this comment. Sometimes I write comments for HN and then delete them. I almost deleted this one (which means I probably should have). This is what's in my head. ----- Why didn't Tesla buy Twitter? Why could Tesla start spending massive amounts of money on Twitter Ads if it couldn't buy it? SolarCity was in a related field, which was at least a fig leaf or minimal justification. There's no real justification to buy Twitter or buy ad space on Twitter. Elon is not actually the god emperor of Tesla. He's been able to sell all of his decisions as improving the future of Tesla (and thus humanity). Of course I could be completely wrong here; I don't have a crystal ball. ----- I think about how we might get to a post-scarcity society, and what post-scarcity means. People like Gene Roddenberry have done a great job portraying this future, but not how we get there. Much of our political discourse is between people who disagree about whether or not we are living in a time of scarcity or post-scarcity. Many people in the city live in the low-scarcity mindset. Many people in the country live in a scarcity mindset. This isn't determinative, it's relative. Just being one place or the other does not dictate how you view the world, but it is indicative. We don't talk about scarcity directly in political speech. It's a deep assumption about the world. It's so deep you may not have even realized that you had taken a side before now. Are taxes and economic activity a zero-sum game? Obviously the other side is wrong, why would you even entertain the question? ---- Why the fuck did I bring up Star Trek and post-scarcity? Because Twitter is a place where fights happen. I'm very happy that people are sending tweets instead of bombs, but we have to continue advancing our level of discourse, and I'm not at all convinced that online public speech is the way to do that; I'm especially not convinced that we can do that in short form; and I'm especially especially convinced that the process of advancing the discourse will not be funded by ads.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
netsharc 4y ago
Maybe Audi's next ad can be "Buy Audi cars, our CEO isn't a bumbling fool who blew $44B on a toy and then decided to sledgehammer it to pieces."...
- harlequinn77 4y ago
  Audi has just decided to enter F1 though, which may have a similar outcome...

Once Tesla starts advertising on Twitter, just you watch all those car companies will come right back.

chinathrow 4y ago

I thought Tesla is not doing advertising. Has that changed?

_hcuq 4y ago
It will now. One of Elon’s tricks is moving money between his companies. Often at the expense of shareholders.
- thoughtstheseus 4y ago
  This is a serious allegation, can you provide supporting information?
  - xadhominemx 4y ago
    Well Tesla bailed out SolarCity, a clear conflict of interest. Elon won the Tesla shareholder suit, basically on a technicality, but everyone can see what actually happened there.
    - thoughtstheseus 4y ago
      That’s not moving money that’s buying assets.
  - gamblor956 4y ago
    SolarCity was purchased to bail out Elon's cousins from their financial mismanagement (which was largely due to them listening to Elon about how to run the company). Boring Co used SpaceX and Tesla engineers for preliminary engineering work (and also for the Vegas tunnel) without reimbursing either company, and Boring Co used SpaceX's Hawthorne parking lot for its original test tube without leasing the land. BoringCo has not paid for the Teslas it uses, it received them for free. (As Tesla claims not to spend any money on marketing, giving these Teslas could not have been a marketing expense for Tesla unless they deliberately misrepresenting their financial statements, which is an entirely separate can of worms.) Tesla didn't pay SpaceX to send a Tesla into space. (See above.) Twitter used Tesla engineers, without reimbursement, to evaluate code just last week.
    - thoughtstheseus 4y ago
      This is not moving money.

eatonphil 4y ago

Advertising spend is material info and if your competitor's CEO now potentially has access to that that's legitimate cause for concern. From what I understand, they are going to wait until it's clear how much of a conflict of interest him being CEO of Twitter (in terms of advertising) + Tesla is.

chii 4y ago
> a conflict of interest why would it be a conflict of interest, unless the CEO of twitter is deliberately stopping car companies from advertising on twitter?
- Macha 4y ago
  Because the CEO of Twitter will receive information on what their competitors are spending on advertising and can use that to calibrate decisions as CEO of Tesla, while the CEOs of the competing car companies do not get any such info

Angostura 4y ago

I don't think so. They'll just see them for what they are - house ads designed to fill up unused inventory.

csours 4y ago

Musk's personal account on Twitter is and was the Marketing Department for Tesla. They don't have to start advertising, because they have never had to buy ads, people are willing to talk about them for free, and a lot of that discourse was due to Musk's tweets.

solarkraft 4y ago
Yeah sure, but he wants to funnel money into Twitter somehow.
- csours 4y ago
  Feel free to skip this comment. Sometimes I write comments for HN and then delete them. I almost deleted this one (which means I probably should have). This is what's in my head. ----- Why didn't Tesla buy Twitter? Why could Tesla start spending massive amounts of money on Twitter Ads if it couldn't buy it? SolarCity was in a related field, which was at least a fig leaf or minimal justification. There's no real justification to buy Twitter or buy ad space on Twitter. Elon is not actually the god emperor of Tesla. He's been able to sell all of his decisions as improving the future of Tesla (and thus humanity). Of course I could be completely wrong here; I don't have a crystal ball. ----- I think about how we might get to a post-scarcity society, and what post-scarcity means. People like Gene Roddenberry have done a great job portraying this future, but not how we get there. Much of our political discourse is between people who disagree about whether or not we are living in a time of scarcity or post-scarcity. Many people in the city live in the low-scarcity mindset. Many people in the country live in a scarcity mindset. This isn't determinative, it's relative. Just being one place or the other does not dictate how you view the world, but it is indicative. We don't talk about scarcity directly in political speech. It's a deep assumption about the world. It's so deep you may not have even realized that you had taken a side before now. Are taxes and economic activity a zero-sum game? Obviously the other side is wrong, why would you even entertain the question? ---- Why the fuck did I bring up Star Trek and post-scarcity? Because Twitter is a place where fights happen. I'm very happy that people are sending tweets instead of bombs, but we have to continue advancing our level of discourse, and I'm not at all convinced that online public speech is the way to do that; I'm especially not convinced that we can do that in short form; and I'm especially especially convinced that the process of advancing the discourse will not be funded by ads.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

netsharc 4y ago

Maybe Audi's next ad can be "Buy Audi cars, our CEO isn't a bumbling fool who blew $44B on a toy and then decided to sledgehammer it to pieces."...

harlequinn77 4y ago
Audi has just decided to enter F1 though, which may have a similar outcome...