michaelmurfy:

 

I'm a Tesla owner and bought it before Musk went nuts. Would I buy one right now? No. A car that I dreamed of owning for years and finally took the plunge buying 3 years ago is forever tainted by Musk's actions. I do still love the car some really talented engineers have built, hate Elon and many Tesla owners can relate.

 

I'm now putting a sticker on my car showing my disapproval of Musk more to stop it from being targeted by other people.

 

This video however explains things really well and love how it was projected onto the building.

 

Personally, I think Musk has lost interest in Tesla as an automaker and I reckon this goes back some years. The 2019 announcement of the Cybertruck? I think he was riffing with us all back then. And last year's We Robot? Surely that event cannot be taken as a serious product development announcement - he's playing a game.

He'll see how far he can string his shareholders along, but he is personally rich enough to ultimately not care. His greater interests lie in SpaceX and using his excessive wealth and close political relationships to meddle and disrupt geopolitics. Just because he can.

As far as money is concerned, he has long since exceeded the critical mass. He also only holds 12% of Tesla. But a young, left-wing radical doesn't care if he destroys your wing mirror, because the Tesla brand is inevitably associated with Musk, even if they were to part with him for image reasons. He is damaging their image in any case.

Tinkerisk:

 

As far as money is concerned, he has long since exceeded the critical mass. He also only holds 12% of Tesla. 

 

Yeah, but through the vagaries of  super-majority voting rules, a vote against Musk on anything significant needs 2/3 of the total shares to approve it,  - if you take his 12% away, that means 75% of the remainder need to oppose him

Also the "compensation package" that the Delaware courts keep bouncing would grant him another 300 million options, @ $22/share....

That would take his holding back to around 23%, thus meaning any major vote against him would now require 88%...

Removing him as CEO would be pretty much impossible for the remaining shareholders.

Elon Musk has been the center of Tesla's marketing rather than traditional advertising spend.
Its probably a big invisible 'tax free' earner for Musk. His activities can be expensed to his companies. 
Everything he does, wears, what parties he has, is a sales campaign, or raising investment profile.

Any major disturbance like a battle to oust Elon Musk will have immediate negative impact on Tesla shares.
The share price for those key investors like Vanguard, Blackrock etc. 

( Berkshire Hathaway has got rid of most of its once large Tesla shareholding though. )

Never mind what a vengeful Elon has the capability to do with the megaphone of X.
Returning to that level of pricing as a technology company, not a car company would be hard,
risky, and not completed in a quarter.

Any plan that takes longer than a quarter to 'shake out' is almost impossible to get over the line. 

wellygary:

 

Removing him as CEO would be pretty much impossible for the remaining shareholders.

 

What I wrote does not contradict this. Nothing is impossible, it just depends on the ‘ability to suffer’ of the 88% ... but then things would also be very bad for Tesla itself.

Tinkerisk:

 

wellygary:

 

Removing him as CEO would be pretty much impossible for the remaining shareholders.

 

 

What I wrote does not contradict this. Nothing is impossible, it just depends on the ‘ability to suffer’ of the 88% ... but then things would also be very bad for Tesla itself.

 

If shares crash first, then the risk is balanced to upside for a change.
Sharks will descend, dumping Elon becomes easier.

Tinkerisk:

 

wellygary:

 

Removing him as CEO would be pretty much impossible for the remaining shareholders.

 

 

What I wrote does not contradict this. Nothing is impossible, it just depends on the ‘ability to suffer’ of the 88% ... but then things would also be very bad for Tesla itself.

 

I'm guessing there are probably at least a good 10% of Tesla stock holders who are Musk-Foamers thou :)

Tesla, Ngauranga Gorge, Wellington this morning:

Exclusive | Wall Street Banks Prepare to Sell Billions of Dollars of X Loans From Elon Musk Deal - WSJ

 

Wall Street Banks Prepare to Sell Billions of Dollars of X Loans

 

Banks are hoping to sell the X debt at around 90 to 95 cents on the dollar

 

Oh, no...

 

In a January email to staff, Musk pointed to the company’s growing influence and power, but said the finances remain problematic.

 

“Our user growth is stagnant, revenue is unimpressive, and we’re barely breaking even,” he said in the email, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

 

The banks never disclosed how they value the loans on their books. Some of X’s equity investors had written down their stakes in the company by as much as 75%.

 

Anyway. 

Missed this from earlier today, The Bulwark actually had an interesting take on his Nazi salute:

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/musk-tells-a-joke

Not everyone has been willing to ignore Musk’s “joke.” And by this morning, Musk felt compelled to post a response:

“It was astonishing how insanely hard legacy media tried to cancel me for saying ‘my heart goes out to you’ and moving my hand from my heart to the audience.”

Poor Elon Musk. The woke mind-virus is out of control! Some people are so censorious about joking about the Nazis! They raise questions and even objections when you make those kind-of-affectionate jokes about Goebbels and Göring and Himmler!

Seriously, like I said earlier, the guy should forget all about being a comedian (and just stick to rockets. And he kinda even sucks at this, too).

freitasm:

 

Tesla, Ngauranga Gorge, Wellington this morning:

 

They started cleaning up by the time we drove down the gorge on our way to Petone for brunch. It was reduced to "Fuck off FA".

And that is why Musk is so desperate to "go to mars", there will be hundreds of billions for him to take money from, because of course he will get the contract.

He knows better than anyone that his whole business is built on BS and quicksand and its getting close to collapsing.

He needs and out

sir1963:

 

And that is why Musk is so desperate to "go to mars", there will be hundreds of billions for him to take money from, because of course he will get the contract.

 

He knows better than anyone that his whole business is built on BS and quicksand and its getting close to collapsing.

 

He needs and out

 

As a „legacy“ Aircraft Engineer (I use to call myself that since Musk came along and told me that the way we've been building aeroplanes for the last 30 years was absolute rubbish 😁), I've always said that it's absolute BS to want to fly to Mars as a tourist when not even the simplest human problems here on Earth are being solved. The richest fart could suddenly end ALL hunger in the world with his money, permanently and sustainably - not just for a few weeks. However, I very much doubt that he is so noble, helpful and good in character.

To be fair to the concept, and putting individuals like Elon aside (he didn't invent the concept, after all), it's not about tourism. At least not for the first decades or century. And if it is about billionaire tourism, I don't mind the idea that a bunch of billionaires are off world for a few years at a time.

Just as we learned a lot in the 60s when developing for the Moon, and afterwards when evolving that development from learnings on the Moon, real problems on Earth can be positively impacted from what we learn by progressing space science. There is value in the effort.