I started literally laughing out loud when I read that post.
Well, this is rich:
I’ll have what Smurf is drinking. Make it a double.
There’s now a criminal probe into Musk’s tweet about taking Tesla private. This is in addition to the SEC investigation.
His new defense: “Hey, I was high! It doesn’t count if you’re fucked up!”
Well, the $420 per share price for the buyout was a giant green flag.
Oh look, the diver showed up with a lawsuit.
Huh. I guess you were right. I have been duly admonished and hang my head in shame for criticizing the man.
I think he should claim damages of $1 per follower of Musk’s Twitter feed. That would only be $22 million dollars.
Musk is full-on nutso.
No way I’m going to predict what comes of this, but the “funding secured” issue seems to have become more serious. The DoJ is investigating in addition to the SEC.
Some reports have indicated that an SEC generally involves a civil penalty like a fine if wrongdoing is discovered; but a DOJ probe would probably indicate a criminal investigation.
The NYT has a good article about Tesla’s finances:
Tesla’s Biggest Problem Isn’t Elon Musk
The company can survive its chief executive’s strange behavior. But it cannot escape $11 billion in debt.
From an SEC press release today, “The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Elon Musk, CEO and Chairman of Silicon Valley-based Tesla Inc., with securities fraud for a series of false and misleading tweets about a potential transaction to take Tesla private.”
It goes on to say, “The SEC’s complaint, filed in federal district court in the Southern District of New York, alleges that Musk violated antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws, and seeks a permanent injunction, disgorgement, civil penalties, and a bar prohibiting Musk from serving as an officer or director of a public company.”
Ouch! Buckle up, Folks! We’re in for a wild ride!
Shit, I definitely got bamboozled by Musk… I thought there’s no way he would have said “funding secured” without that actually being the case :smack:. Looks like TSLA stock has plummeted another 12% in after-hours trading after the SEC press release.
Quick, somebody take away his Martian passport!
I used to idolize Musk, but his behavior over the last year has been nothing short of bat-shit insane.
I know a lot of people believe that he’s started behaving differently in the last couple of years but he’s been like this for a long time. He was thrown out of Paypal for exactly this kind of mercurial behavior, and he’s been a blustery, capricious jerk since at least the early days of SpaceX, and of course he was responsible for forcing out the actual founders of Tesla, Marc Tarpenning and Martin Eberhard.
Regardless of what you think of Musk’s supposed genius and vision, he is objectively unsuited to being the CEO of a company that has moved past its conceptual innovation phase and is in the midst of developing into production manufacturing. Musk was smart—or lucky—enuogh to hire a competent COO at SpaceX, and should have done the same thing with Tesla three or four years ago. He is clearly out of his depth at Tesla, and while his behavior alone isn’t going to sink the company, his lack of effective planning and leadership, combined with the enormous debt that Tesla has borne in its earlier attempts at extreme automation (something other players in the automotive industry realized had limited returns) has put Tesla in a precarious financial position regardless of the technical and popular success of its products. Even if the Tesla board votes to cut Musk loose they are still saddled with massive debt that they cannot pay down with foreseeable profit.
Stranger
Musk strikes me as being very similar to his hero, Nikola Tesla. Like Tesla, he can be a brilliant visionary, but also like Tesla he has ideas that are just nutty and has poor control over his impulses.
Yeah but did Tesla smoke pot on a podcast? Or on…the first radio station?