great writing

So this is what we know about Musk at this stage.

1. Either lies about or is utterly incompetent at understanding autonomous driving and development. "3 to 6 months" 18 months ago, AP1 equivalence in 3 months (took 15).

2. Either lies about or is utterly incompetent at manufacturing. "Alien dreadnought", "machine that builds the machine", "out manufacture others", "oops people are better than robots, pulling out most of the robots, now building a hand made tent line my bad"

3. Either lies about or is utterly incompetent at disclosure and prediction. "Epic short squeeze coming" "Shorts will blow up in about 3 weeks" "5000 Model 3/week by the end of 2017".

4. Either lies about or is utterly incompetent at running a profitable business even with a monopoly and huge margins. Musk claimed profitability would happen in 2012, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 , 18.

5. Either lies about or is utterly incompetent at novel situational understanding - the cave being one example. Failed to grasp things that an intelligent disinterested party could figure out in seconds.

Things he's good at:

- Public relations and creating false hero narratives with him at the center of attention
- Creating an army of followers with cult-like devotion thanks to his careful cultivation of the above.
- Prototyping desirable consumer items (but unprofitable ones)
- Taking big risks and not taking no for an answer. Having the wherewithal to see them through in the case of prototyping.
- Skilled carnival barker theatrics (solar roofs, Tesla semi, $35K Model 3) and master conman level inspiring of trust.

This is not a company you invest in as it has no long term future. I think the evidence is fairly strong that Musk is simply not a very intelligent or capable person. He just has big balls and big thinking and a bunch of fraud and lies to fill in the huge holes where those two aren't enough. He's basically the Theranos CEO with an engineering background. Or Enron's Skilling.

It's over. Musk has committed the ultimate and only unpardonable sin in Sillycon Valley's eyes by donating to the party of the orange-one-that-shall-be-unnamed.







It's so ridiculous that this out of all things is going to be the thing that takes the company down.

Fraud? Subsidy abuses? Anti-Union thuggery? Defective manufacturing? Whistleblower complaints? Impending insolvency? Not a problem.

Donating to the GOP? DEATH PENALTY!






I thought I still had until Q2 earnings to get my all of my bets in, but I think time is of the essence now. He is getting torn apart on social media.

Might have been the smartest move to get more Republican support for his projects. I don't understand why the **** he does it though.

People often mistake Twitter for the real world. It's an alt-left echo chamber with a small fraction of the total population. Journalists make this mistake a lot, confusing Twitter for reality and public opinon. That's how you made a fortune betting on Trump in 2016.

So I think you're overstating the case a little. I'm sure there's quite a bit of overlap between ecoclowns who'd buy his cheaper cars and the hard left Twitter crowd, but this only this adds a little to a ton of upcoming bad press as the whistle blower things moves forward and they run into the upcoming money wall. Most of the bigoted losers who'd screech on Twitter about this aren't car fans, imo.

The end tends to be everything caving in. I think this is just a small part.

Thinking about this some more, the only angle I can come up where this matters as much as you think is if the press now finally do their job and be critical of Tesla/Musk rather than portray this fraud as a hero for clicks. And if Democrats sell their stock in disgust, perhaps that will start a downward spiral. Do you really think this will meaningfully impact demand for M3?

Ironically, Musk has done absolutely nothing wrong even if you take the hard-left view. The only way to access politicians is to give them money, and access is essential or your business dies. It's how the system works on both sides, and businesses have no choice. Trump explained this in detail during his campaign and why he donated to both sides. He wasn't kidding.

Musk already doing damage control saying he doesn’t see the checks and donates to both sides to keep dialogues open (which is apparently true). However, I’d still say this is a small to medium negative overall for him. Impact on M3 demand will likely be very marginally affected - from what I’m seeing, cancellations were mounting before this news, but should still be a small ding.

Plenty of left-leaning Twitter users (both retail investors and rich NY/CA libs) with grand delusions of Elon “Saving the World” Musk that may now sell/never buy the stock or products now on principle. Additionally, his media fake news pumps were already losing effectiveness - this should accelerate the demise of that strategy for Musk.

Woah, really copying Trump with the counter-punching a detractor, this has to be his gold star family moment. Accusing the rescuer of being a pedo? All the pressure finally unravelling him?

Jesus

That's some amazing stuff. Has anyone ever seen this level of insanity from a CEO? Is Musk on cocaine? Has he lost his mind? He's either on drugs or under extreme pressure from his business about to collapse. Even a very sick narcissist (which Musk is) doesn't act like this publicly - they have more sense.

I look forward to the apologies and thank yous from the blind dumbasses (ChipRick in particular) when everything I said about Musk and his business turns out to be true, and you were too stupid to see it despite copious evidence laid out in detail for you.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1018494440648859648



Ironically, I've give Musk a 90+% chance of being correct (on the charge - the guy is obviously correct on the cave stupidity/PR stunt). Irrelevant as to the insanity of saying it though.

The British guy did say in the video he couldn’t have made it 50 meters from the dive start point, not the initial entrance. If you could truly swim without gear to Cave 5 I’m not sure where the dive start point would be.

The pedo stuff is bizarre, what is that from?

It's coming from pure anger that a narcissist is getting found out. Narcissists think it unfair when they're criticized and lash out in what seem like crazy irrational ways to normal people. The GOP criticism adds its bit in sending him over the edge. Musk is the kind of creepy cuck who says "I'm the alpha here" to his wife during their wedding dance, who screams at his employees. How do you think he's going to handle falling from grace after years of being put on a hero-level pedestal by the fake news media?

Hopefully the guy sues him - he's British and libel laws are very strong there. I'd be surprised if this doesn't make headlines as well: "Elon Musk calls British Cave diver hero a pedophile."

The bigger issue is that he's lost his filter. Lots of bizarre behavior recently, horrible business decisions (the tent). The reports that he's on cocaine and desperately looking for a backer have to be more probable now.

Any other company, the CEO would be fired after a public comment like this. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

Wait did Musk really call the guy a pedo cos he's an expat in Thailand? What a weird dude.

Wow calling the hero cave diver who jsut risked his life saving a load of kids a pedo cannot possibly work out well. Along with donation backlash (nothing wrong here in fairness), submarine pr stunt fail, the tent, whistle blower, reports of ridiculous repair times+costs, struggling to convert those deposits + running out of cash pretty happy with short i opened last week at 315.

This is incredible. Rather than deleting the tweet or apologizing, he's doubling down.





He's openly got mainstream journalists after that last tweet calling him a piece of ****. This against the backdrop of Twitter going crazy about finding out he donated to Republicans.

He must be on a bender. That's the most bullish take at this point - if he's not high, wow. His only out is to claim someone hacked his account or have an employee take the fall and pay them off on the side.

Long Tesla?

Edit: already posted.


This pedo **** is nuts. He even doubled down to avoid any thought that it was an autocorrect issue.


How is this real life?

EVERYONE has so much love for these heroic divers who risked their lives to save 13 kids from certain death and Musk just straight up called one a pedo on twitter twice! Why would he risk doing this?? Incredible. He could have just said, "I tried my best and even a small chance the mini sub was needed it was worth doing". But no he calls the guy a pedo... wow...

i would think that the pedo remark has more weight if the guy wasnt a cave specialist. if he was just some random old british guy then he's probably doing some weird sex stuff (not necessarily pedo **** though) but it makes sense a cave diver would seek out a cool place for his hobby on the cheap. elon looking mightily unhinged either way cause everyone loves the cave rescue people now. i definitely think he's cracking under pressure of knowing it's all coming down soon.

Hitting all the mainstream media now globally with headline news. And ironically 20x amplifying the coverage of the claims it was a shameless PR stunt.

Has there ever been this kind of behavior from a CEO of a company that didn't soon collapse? This is even more crazy than Skilling's slow meltdown with Enron.

The tweets are still up with no apologies. Shows that both his judgment and his filters are gone. And that there's no one who's able to stop him and that he doesn't listen to any of his team. No way the PR guys weren't on him quickly after this.

For his next act, Musk will be hosting an NRA mixer catered by Ted Nugent, featuring a tasting menu of endangered species and wild delicacies from around the world. Thai hookers for desert.

7 hours later, after it's hit every mainstream news service in the world and will be in every Monday newspaper, all incriminating tweets have been deleted. No public apology yet.

Never realized Musk actually had a cameo appearance in Iron Man 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9BUcjuW-_A

Based on my understanding of how tesla trades, I expect the stock to rally about 6-7% on the news tomorrow

I’m not versed in the PM world, but at some point doesn’t one of these huge holders have to be like “we can’t take on this risk anymore because I’ll look like a fool if I’m wrong”?

https://electrek.co/2018/07/16/tesla...profitability/

TS, anything to add?