The folks that control our world and most media outlets are just looking for excuses and reasons to "hate" Tesla and Elon Musk and create bad press as he is about to revolutionize space travel after he boldly created the first mass produced electric car. Should have known the negativity would be coming ...... After all, he is leading us out of dependency on every "soon-to-be extinct" fossil fuel energy resource and nuclear energy that creates only climatic, environmental and humanitarian dangers to us all. He is trying to move us forward -- and doesn't play by the corporatists rule book -- the propaganda attacks will continue!! VOTE! RESIST!!!
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What do you mean I can't say anything I want? I'm billionaire Elon Musk and that is what I do for a living.
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I admire Elon's vision and achievements to date greatly but he needs to stay off Twitter and the airwaves and keep his focus where it belongs.
Musk’s miscalculation of Saudi intentions has cost him, and shareholders, much money.
It was probably delusional of him to think he could bank on Saudi funding without an MOU. or term sheet. He put them in a position to come back with a lowered offer. In other words, thanks Elon, the new strike price is 375, take it or leave it. The phrase “ financing secured” will not soon be forgotten by Mr. Musk.
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1. unsustainable cost and spend
2. Supply base issues preventing projected ramp rates
3. Debts and structured products of many different flavors burdening the financials
4. Debt, both short and long term, that is unsustainable given the lack of healthy operational cash flows
5. A desire to own the whole nine yards
6. A lack of appreciation for anything other than his own products
7. A clear lack of humility
8. A board that incentivized him to hype up the value of the company by tying his future compensation to market value as opposed to net income
9. Cash flow problems that are creating headaches because they cannot pay suppliers even outside of a 90 day window
10. Inability to delegate
11. Desire to micromanage because he lacks trust in others
12. An overinflated ego
13. Using SpaceX as a collateral for Tesla and vice versa to raise money for either venture...
14. Ignorant equity analysts
are only some of the issues that is leading Musk to overstate and overhype the companies he owns. Whether there are clear and deliberate inaccuracies in the Tesla financial reports will become clear after SEC audits, but given the above it would not be surprising if there were.
But read outside the financial box. The rate of executive turnover at Tesla should raise eyebrows. Either they don't know how to hire or if they do, don't know how to retain talent. Both are bad signs if you are a stockholder. And then there is the question of why so many are leaving.
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@Plato Some of your points are valid, but you fail to recognize Tesla's significant achievements.
1) They didn't just promise great cars; they have delivered great cars, which their owners overwhelmingly love (I've been an owner since 2012, and they are the best cars I've ever owned).
2) They delivered their own worldwide recharging network; again, this isn't vaporware; this has largely already been delivered, which means you can drive a Tesla almost anywhere in the country -- now. Show me another automaker that had to or would invest in a refueling station network.
3) They continue to invest in the car factory in Fremont, they built (and continue to expand) the largest battery factory in the world in NV, and they are building one of the largest solar factories in the world in NY. Plus, another car factory is planned in China. Oh, and they continue to roll out new stores and service centers. Is it really surprising that they aren't yet profitable? Do you think these factories, rechargers and stores pay for themselves overnight?
Sure, Musk can be erratic and a bit too grandiose for my taste, but most geniuses are socially awkward. Still, I'll take what he's doing to transform industries and advance sustainability any day of the week.
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@Plato Tesla cars aren't the key part of the Tesla empire. The batteries are. With all the other car makers now jumping on the EV bandwagon, they will need batteries for their cars and Tesla is the biggest manufacturer of EV batteries in the world.
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Mr Musk’s pattern of self destructive behavior, chaotic style, and lack of self control threatens to overshadow his reputation as a visionary genius. His behavior is now the narrative. A sabbatical seems in order.
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Two chiefs of accounting just left before their massive stock options vested and before they had to sign off on any financial statements. Something is very wrong. The bottom will fall out soon. The evidence is leaning towards Enron-level fraud
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There are many who want to see Tesla fail.
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Most of history’s greatest inventive geniuses also had more than a few personal flaws, along with a couple of bad episodes. Guilty of regulatory misjudgment or not, history will still doubtlessly focus almost exclusively on Musk’s already massive list of accomplishments. Any mistakes made during the past few months were not his first and won’t be his last.
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I am sure the inventor by whose name Musk has used for his company smoked pot in public, called people pedophiles, and ranted and raved at others who turned their noses to his inventions.
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Tesla had more than his share of quirks and eccentricities. Also look to the full histories of Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh as just a few great pioneers of the past who performed many dark and questionable deeds at times.
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@AndyW
You understand Musk has not invented or discovered anything as related to Tesla Motors. He has used his wealth from co-founding paypal to put in place a structure to built electric vehicles. That's not invention or discovery. That's effort and drive to develop electric vehicles. Vehicles and electric batteries existed before Musk. Now, he employs engineers and physicists to find more technological ways to improve battery power and drive-train without the use of gasoline. So any patent that Tesla owns is due to the genius of the people he has hired.
So Musk is no Nikola Tesla or Albert Einstein insomuch as discovering things in mathematics and physics. So, no one will remember Musk just as no one today cares about Travis Kalanick. Do you remember who he is? He's the founder of Uber, who went bananas as CEO and then was ousted earlier this year due to his idiocy. So no, Musk and Kalanick will not be in history books like Bills Gates might be for programming windows into a software used by the entire world.
Finally, Musk violated US Securities laws. He should be punished for that. If I did something like that, I'd be in jail today.
Apparently tweets by business leaders are held to a much higher standard than those by the president of the entire country.
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@Louis This is a case of market manipulation by the CEO of a publicly traded company. What are you talking about?
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Musk is not forbidden from tweeting, but there are fiduciary laws that sircumscribe the actions of CEOs. Musk violated sec laws. The president hasn't yet broken any laws with his tweets. When he does, believe me, half the country would jump on it within 5 minutes of his tweets.
@ed Are you sure the President hasn't violated any laws via Tweet?
Something like obstruction of justice, perhaps?
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I agree with this. But can I get some parity here? The orange squatter in the executive office, has made at least a dozen statements meant to manipulate the market. Where is his investigation?
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It’s not Elon Musk that is the problem. It’s our entire capitalist economy that is the problem. What kind of economic system allows folks to bet against whether a stock price goes up or down? That presents major motivations for some people to manipulate the market for their benefit. It shouldn’t be allowed but of course it’s perfectly legal in the upside down economic system of capitalism. Elon is a visionary and visionaries never fit well into the established economic system in this country.
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@Mike L So, which economic systems don't present benefit to manipulators?
@Mike L What a blatantly ignorant comment. Capitalism is a fundamental piece of human nature and there is nothing at all inherently wrong with it. Its structure has helped enhance humankind and our quality of life in more ways than you care to imagine. If not for capitalism you wouldn't be reading the New York times from your digital device.
Wise up.
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Every communist state ever has seen its leaders siphon off all of the money. All have failed miserably
Elon Musk seems to be having some sort of a psychotic break.
I hope the man he falsely accused, twice, of being a pedophile wins a large judgment.
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@SKV Really? You really think this is worthy of a lawsuit, much less a large judgment? Exactly what damage was done to this guy? I'm not saying that Musk's tweet wasn't stupid, but worthy of a lawsuit? I think not. This is just one of the problems with the justice system.
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@SKV I'd apologize to the guy for calling him that then maybe we can get some ice cream after. Not a lawsuit...
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Yes, really. He baselessly defamed that man's character by saying he's a sex criminal of the most heinous kind, a molester of children. It is, most properly, actionable.
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The justice department should investigate the link between media outlet reporting and short sellers. False and misleading reporting on Tesla has been commonplace for years. It could simply be old industries getting their press buddies to hammer the threat to their old market, but it could also be the press working with short sellers. Regardless of the why, the facts are clear, the press has generally reported false and misleading stories about the viability of Tesla as a company and electric cars as an industry.
I fail to see how Musk profited from his tweet. I suspect he didn't. I fail to see how anyone profited from the tweet and so it is difficult to see the criminal intent. I do see that short sellers were probably upset by his tweet. Although, the justice department has helped them out today, so maybe they can recover their losses with not only the help of the press, but with help from our government.
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Chris:
Musk is a substantial Tesla shareholder and his buy-out tweet based on a false statement (“financing secured”) caused the stock to go up dramatically. By his own admission, he was hoping to squeeze the shorts, forcing them to cover, thereby increasing the stock price even more. This is a case of illegal stock manipulation pure and simple.
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..give Elon a break - he was mistaken. He was smoking 420, he didn't mean to say $420 a share.
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At this point, with all this trouble, he should take Tesla private
Elon Musk is having a hard time at the moment, but the companies he's created are still huge successes that Trump could only dream about.
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I'm sure that Mr. Musk regrets this tweet, although given the demands for short-term success from being a public company, I'm also quite sure that he wishes he could turn Tesla private.
Companies like Tesla -- which need to invest billions of dollars to fund sustainable long-term results -- are poor fits to being public, where money managers are incessantly seeking short-term results -- results that inevitably take time to germinate. Plus, you have the short-sellers, who all too often have conflicts of interest (like large holdings in fossil fuel companies or companies that heavily depend on fossil fuels) and who further pervert the effects of being public.
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@JB, "Companies like Tesla -- which need to invest billions of dollars to fund sustainable long-term results -- are poor fits to being public."
I agree -- and Musk should have understood that before taking the company public.
@JB
Absurd. You think Tesla would have ever survived without cash infusions offered by the public equity markets? And what about the massive stock-based compensation packages that Tesla offers its BoD and employees.
Who cares what the money managers care about? Tesla does not have activist shareholders AT ALL.
Warren Buffett says he likes it when people short $BRK. Keep that in mind.
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@Troy Actually, yes -- although admittedly, the capital requirements are more readily available via public markets. That said, Tesla simply isn't a short-term play. Telsa has invested and continues to invest billions in factories and other infrastructure (charging and stores, etc). These are significant capital expenditures, and it will take years for them to generate profitable returns. This should surprise absolutely no one, yet these public markets always react whenever that Tesla isn't yet profitable or whenever Musk sneezes. Granted, he can be his own worst enemy, but the magnifying glass on him is ridiculous.