Up to recently Tesla’s success has been driven by Musk’s outsized personality. His vision and his ability to sell the public and investors on that vision. And it has brought Tesla (and SpaceX) far, close to the promised land of a company able to produce very cool EVs in volume profitably. But Moses never got past Mt. Nebo.
Musk is not showing that he has what it takes to function as the leader of the company as it transitions from selling a vision to actually producing and selling the vehicles in volume and profitably. If he does not willingly delegate the actual operations to those who are better suited to the task then he must be forced to by the board and if they do not the company’s prospects are poor (IMHO). Once potential consumers (and I am part of that demographic) perceive that they will be less willing to spend that kind of money not knowing if the company will be around to support the product in three years. Similarly bond buyers and other investors will drop off. Well are. If I thought the company was going to make it bonds with a yield of 8.337% would be in my portfolio.
He has switched from being the company’s greatest asset to being the biggest liability.
(emphasis mine) Now you’re just throwing out random unrelated crap. What the hell do financial instruments from Tesla have to do with Musk’s clearance in relation to SpaceX? It’s nonsense.
Stick with the drug use. It’s a better argument. Padding out your argument with obviously unrelated stuff doesn’t strengthen it.
Also I love how you state “selling junk bonds” as if Musk personally is on some street corner in a ratty trenchcoat selling them.
It is selective, which makes it arbitrary and often capricious. *Past *drug use is also a potential disqualifier, but they can’t exactly take a hard line on that because it would exclude well over half the American population.
The DSS could, at any point in the past decade, could have looked into Musk’s attendance at Burning Man, interviewed some fellow attendees, and “discovered” that Musk used recreational substances while holding a clearance (including ones that are outright illegal). On the other hand, they could look at the podcast and say there’s no proof that marijuana was actually used, and that it’s not worth looking into further. That’s arbitrary.
But the decision to do something so blatant, so overt, that it takes serious effort to not look into further (and they may contort enough that they can look the other way), that decision was not “arbitrary” nor responsible for someone in his current position to make.
Yes, they could look at the podcast and say that. And they could hand him a cup to pee in because he shows signs of stress and should not have a clearance.
You seem to have a very different definitions of “capricious” and “arbitrary” than the common usage. It is certainly made very clear that current use of illegal drugs, or other activities which could provide “adverse information” which could compromise a clearanceholder is grounds for revocation of a security clearance. That isn’t capricious or arbitrary.
But Musk’s ability to hold a security clearance is irrelevent to the success of Tesla, and doesn’t even have much bearing on his job to lead SpaceX; his ability to inspire confidence in investors, and attract and retain talented executive management is, and it is inarguable that he is doing poorly in this regard by objective metrics of stock price and the number of execs and senior personnel rotating though Tesla like a ferris wheel.
Looking at DSeid’s investor cite it mentions Apple’s acquisition of top Tesla employees for their EV project. Apple is a company with more money than it knows what to do with.
There’s a significant number of EV’s coming out in 2019 or 2020. I personally think Tesla did great harm with all their delays and may peak in the early part of the next decade if not sooner.
You are aware that clearances are granted to people, and not companies, right? So if Person A is running two businesses, if one is in financial difficulties, one can’t just pretend that has nothing to do with the person in question. That’s not crap, that’s a fucking fact. Investigators and adjudicators want to look at the whole person, not just the good parts that the person wants people to see.
You’d rather focus on “selling awesome cars and rockets” but a fact remains a fact.
Taking away someone’s clearance for CURRENT drug use is the furthest possible thing from arbitrary. Get real.
And Musk saying words to the effect of “oh look at me I’m smoking pot” are sufficient evidence. Clearance holders do not have to be proven to have violated the terms of their clearance beyond a reasonable doubt.
Let me ask you this: if I went on YouTube and smoked pot, how long do you think it would take me to have my clearance suspended? I’m guessing a couple days; but I don’t make luxury cars or sell flamethrowers to the public.
“Selling junk bonds” just means that Tesla’s bondholders demand a high interest rate to cover future risk. It has no further meaning than that.
I have no idea. Is your YouTube channel popular? Is there someone that wants to get you fired? Is there someone that wants to make an example of somebody, and you got unlucky? What state are you in? Are you the CEO of a couple of billion-dollar companies or just some schmuck?
Again, it’s the selective enforcement that makes it arbitrary.
There we go. What all this is really about is whether an individual might be subject to coercion. A heroin addict is obviously coercable. So might be a casual and responsible user of an illegal drug that was nevertheless concerned about the information being public. And in the past (perhaps even today under narrow circumstances), so was a dirty homosexual.
Obviously, no one can blackmail Musk over such a public use of pot. And it is too far a stretch that Musk somehow has a disregard for the law (hell, the first thing he asked Rogan before taking the blunt was “is this legal?”). The risk that Musk will leak something to the Chinese or North Koreans or whoever is zero.
But the rules are there if they choose to follow them and if someone wants to make a big stink over it, they can.
Yes. Because the company is a large risk. That’s my point.
Are you ADVOCATING that billionaires should be treated with more lieniency than anyone else with a clearance?
You’re completely missing the point: if Musk isn’t subject to investigation/suspension, that is what makes the process arbitrary. One rule for billionaires, another rule for everyone else.
Again, you’re cherry picking like we are on a farm. Clearances aren’t only about being blackmailed. It’s also evaluating whether someone is a reckless fuckstick who does anything they want because rules don’t apply to them.
I don’t know why you continue to press onward with this line of argument that even you agree is tangential, but the fact remains that illegal drug use—whether or not it actually comprises an immediate or obvious liability to blackmail or coercion—is one of the explicitly defined reasons for revoking a security clearance. In every security clearance annual referesher briefing I’ve seen since medical and then recreational marijuana has been legitimized by various states, the briefer has made the point that the federal government still considers possession and use of marijuana to be a crime and evidence of use will result in a security review and probable loss of clearance regardless of the legal status at the state and local level. You may think this is wrong, unfair, or injust, but it is far from “capricious” and “arbitrary” to enforce an regulation which is explicitly defined as a condition of maintaining a security clearance.
And again, this has nothing to do with the issue of Musk’s fitness as the CEO of Tesla, which is the issue of investor confidence and recruitment and retention of senior management. Musk can smoke up in private, pop Ambien like it is Pez, or guggle a fifth of whiskey, and as long as he performs well in his duties as CEO, nobody would give a shit. That his recent antics have resuted in management churn, abrupt stock price drops, and repeated concerns about his emotional stability and fitness to remain CEO of Tesla, combined with the continuing problems the company has had at meeting what were always overly ambitious production targets and managing costs, are all reasons for the Tesla board to consider removing Musk or subordinating his role to someone who is better able to manage and lead the company through this phase of growth. Guiding a company through such a large scale up is difficult enough, and starting a new car manufacturer is already incredibly challenging without adding an emotionally unstable, evidently narcissistic, pretentious blowhard who persists in engaging in pointless public spats and spruting out increasingly half-baked ideas to the mix.
It spiraled out from this comment of mine, which aside from the “arbitrary and capricious” descriptors, I don’t think anyone actually disagrees with:
No one disagrees that there could be an investigation. And I don’t think anyone disagrees that there might not be one if no one chooses to pursue it.
Sentencing guidelines were also spelled out very clearly when it came to crack vs. powder cocaine. That was also arbitrary and capricious (and racist). I fail to see how merely being explicit makes a rule non-arbitrary, especially combined with selective enforcement.
There’s this weird thing in this thread where despite trying to be very careful with my wording, people keep confusing what I say is the case vs. what I say should be the case. I suppose I’ll have to try harder.
Of course billionaires get treated differently. That is one of several reasons why the process is arbitrary. And of course that’s wrong, except inasmuch as it’s harder to bribe a billionare than someone loaded down with a ton of debt.
Now what I think should happen is that they look at the incident, see that it was casual, legal use of no greater consequence, and decide that is has no impact on his clearance. I also think this guy’s clearance should be restored because he’s a successful, responsible business owner and that it’s utterly indefensible that its relation to cannabis somehow makes the man a security risk.
Sure. But only in relation to actual security stuff. Is there the slightest element in Musk’s behavior that indicates he’s a security risk? I don’t think “reckless fuckstick” is really captured in the regulations.
Yes, reckless fuckstick is captured in the regulations. That would e erratic behavior causing someone financial harm. And they don’t have to go looking into Musk, anyone can file a complaint against him. I worked for someone who filed a complaint against a government employee who didn’t pay for work done. He lost his clearance.
I loved my Fusion, except I have too many supplier and plant visits that dig into the gasoline. And the limited number of chargers at work. On the other hand, I’m having way too much fun with my SHO (better than the Mustang it replaced, because it’s, you know, comfortable).
I’ll have to see if the 727 is a good car, but, yeah, I can see myself in a BEV, based only on the awesomeness that was the Fusion Energi.
And, no, I don’t credit Tesla for this. We built hybrids before Tesla existed, and BEV is the next logical step.
I’ve already started to customize my Model 3. I got the Tesla trunk and frunk mats! They seem…fine? They’re floor mats. All I care about is that they prevent the roast chicken incident of 2006 from happening again. Supposedly they’re manufactured by Weathertech, but cost much less than the Weathertech ones. Still $70 for a few square feet of plastic seems expensive, but that’s nearly $60 cheaper than from Weathertech.
The adaptive cruise control is nice in traffic, but it really demonstrates to me how far we have to go for self driving cars. From what I understand, the adaptive cruise control is based mostly on the sonar. It does fine at not hitting the car in front of me, and keeping about three seconds of space between us. What it doesn’t do is look ahead any farther than that. It will do things like accelerate hard into stopped traffic when a gap opens in front of me, because the stopped traffic is a bit further out than its horizon.
The lane keeping stuff is also pretty fun, but I haven’t been using it much. I’ve been using it at off-peak times, so I’ve been cruising in the right lane. At every entrance and exit it tries to re-center the car, so it does a little swerve to the right, and then eases back into the lane when the right line returns.
In conclusion, at the moment I can drive smoother than the automated systems, but I expect they’ll only get better over time, while I will age and get worse. The automated system is a much better driver than some people I know, and I wish they would get modern cars.
I don’t find that Autopilot really does this on exits, but it certainly does on entrances or when two lanes merge into one.
All the freeways around here have lots of lanes, so for the most part I can cruise along in the second-to-left lane with no problems. No merge lanes or anything to confuse the system. I’ve gone for an hour or more like this, so it’s a big benefit.
I took my Tesla into the shop today. Fairly minor issue: the driver’s seat developed a bit of a squeak. Sounds like it’s coming from the leftmost hinge or something. They agreed to look into it, though it took a bit of convincing since they didn’t like how to repro the issue while stationary, I had to kinda rock back and forth in the seat. They accepted it though and gave me a rental.
Pretty satisfied with the service experience here; not perfect, but a notch or two above BMW, which almost never gave me a replacement car.
I did chat with another guy there, who was unhappy with his panel gaps. Tesla measured them and said they were within spec, and so declined service. I didn’t look at the car to see if he was being too picky or not, though.
Just a little comment on the rental. I won’t say the brand so as to avoid offending any sensibilities, but it’s a modern hybrid sedan from a well-known maker.
It has a pushbutton start. But why? The keyfob authorizes it, and the engine does not start up right then anyway. There is no reason they couldn’t have gone the Tesla route, with no explicit start–just get in and start driving. But for some reason there’s a button.
There is also a switch for the parking brake. Why? The whole thing is obviously electronic, and must be rated for use all the time, since some people live on hills. There is no reason not to just engage it every time the car is in park and leave off the switch. Tesla did that and it works fine.
It feels like the design doesn’t trust the driver enough to learn a new way of operation, even if it’s better. Someone thought that people would complain if there’s no control at all, even though the only historical reason there were separate controls is because they used to be (electro)mechanical. Or they tested on a focus group without ever looking at how quickly the people get used to the new way, and instead only asked their initial preference.
About 1/4 of the trunk appears to be filled with batteries. But they’re inconveniently arranged so you really lose about half if you have a large object. No wonder “sedans are dying” when they ruin the already-limited storage like this.
The display said “Thank you for driving a hybrid” when I got out. I suppose the sentiment is nice, but it felt like an apology.
As long as you’re awake at this ungodly hour, explain this Fremont sales event to me.
Are you saying you can just go down there and buy a car? I thought you had to be on a list long ago (but admit I know almost nothing about this) and wait for your car to be built.
Isn’t it obvious? Because sometimes people want to sit in the car and not be running down the battery or running the engine.
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As I understand it, Tesla started making various Model 3 designs without having a specific order for them. (That isn’t a criticism – it reflects that they are ramping up production, bully for them.) I think they are having a handful of these events around the country – but Fremont seems to be the main attraction – where someone on the reservation list can just hop to the front of the line if they make the trip, but they can only choose from the models on the lot.
I’m not following the logic of why people in a limited geographic area should suddenly not have to wait in line like others who have been waiting years. My guess is that Tesla’s logistics is being strained by the increase in deliveries, and they want to move cars without having to ship them to people who have put in their order.
FWIW, I read stories about reservation holders in Texas getting invites to these events. I have not received one, so maybe they are sending them to those who signed up earlier than me?