Is Elon Musk hurting Tesla?

MacronvFrugals

Banning numerous journalists off Twitter really just compounds the fact he's an unhinged individual (as if we needed more evidence), not sure if he's stopped taking his meds or what but surely this is the final straw for the Tesla evangelists.

Also, saying he was finished dumping the stock when it clearly wasn't true is a poor look imo.

DublinWriter

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119996404#Comment_119996404

Yeah, but no. People forget that Tesla was already up and running when Musk bought it, much like what he did with Twitter.

You really have to look at his history and leadership style prior to Telsa, especially with the x.com/Paypal debacle and his fight with Peter Theil over Musk insisting that Microsoft products were used at the server-end rather than Linux.

<Mod Note: Snip, keep comments on this thread limited to the impact on Tesla, if you want a general political discussion or on free speech platforms do it on the politics or current affairs forum>

I think I'm going to buy boards.ie and make it a free speech platform......just imagine.....

magicbastarder

regardless of his unhinged behaviour, the fact that twitter will undoubtedly be taking much of his focus away from tesla would be concerning to sharholders, surely?

tesla is massively overvalued anyway, so the share price is bound to tank at some point anyway.

podge1979

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120001799#Comment_120001799

Really, hard to avoid the Maga cohort and the orange baby man for the last 5 or so years!!

podge1979

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120002406#Comment_120002406

Jayus.... He'll have the Healy Rea's on his case now! But I doubt they let people buy Tesla's in Kerry as the own so many petrol stations 🤔

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120002644#Comment_120002644

Well this seems to be some of the backlash that he's getting at the moment. There's shareholders demanding a buyback program to prop up the share price and hold Elon to account

Now personally I agree that Tesla was way overvalued and a bunch of fund managers who got burned because the share price tanked doesn't really concern me

However, it is part of Musk's job to keep the share price high. It's literally part of his compensation package

It seems that beyond the general overvaluation, his actions are hurting the share price, so the board should be hauling him over the coals for doing literally the opposite of his job

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120002513#Comment_120002513

Have you been over to the racist politics forum recently? Doesn't seem to be a shortage of free speech on this site 😬

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120002013#Comment_120002013

To an extent you're correct, recent polls have shown that Tesla is now viewed more favourably among conservative voters in the US than it was a year ago

Elon has likely contributed to this in some respect

However, there's a reason why CEOs try to stay out of politics, and when they do make political statements they tend to be very focused on their customers views

Whatever your views on Elon's politics, it's hard to anyone to look at the plummeting share prices and say that's a good thing. Shareholders don't like instability, especially when it's driven by the CEO flapping his mouth on Twitter

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120002483#Comment_120002483

Well Tesla was really just a start up when Elon took over, not a mature business like Twitter is now

So with Tesla he was able to shape the company from an early stage whereas with Twitter he's trying to painfully transfer a large company into what he views it should be, seemingly in the space of a few weeks

I'm personally not surprised at all with the chaos, although I am pretty amazed at how quickly things are falling apart. He's demonstrated over the years that he's an extremely difficult person to work with and you don't end up the world's (formerly) richest man without some unshakeable self confidence

The question is whether Tesla, being a mature company itself now, stands to benefit or suffer from all of this. I can't see any way it'll possibly benefit and I think it'll likely suffer while Elon is CEO of both companies

Furze99

Elon is trying to ride too many horses at the same time. And with the horses getting panicked and diverging, he's heading for a crashing fall. Maybe he'll realise in time and ditch a few and just ride the most likely to get him through.

Larbre34

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120003041#Comment_120003041

You're right. But which horse would that be?

The collapsing social media platform or the chronically underfunded and outmoded lekky car maker?

Either way, he's now at the mercy of his markers.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120003049#Comment_120003049

It's one of the most profitable car companies in the world. Literally every analysis says the share price should be through the roof because their sales are constantly going up, but instead it's tanked over the past year

I mean it's not so much two horses and one horse and a 3 legged donkey at this point

I've heard one theory that he's just trying to tank Twitter as quickly as possible because he was forced to buy it and the loans are leveraged against Twitter itself and not Elon. So if it goes down then he largely just walks away

I don't believe that personally but it's hard to see a winning strategy behind his current moves. Even the plans he's announced for Twitter are pretty mediocre and likely won't make the company a big player in social media

Gumbo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120002963#Comment_120002963

Swear to god, I had no idea what the MAGA hat was!

carsfan2

Mat Watson on CarWow Ownership, Electric Vehicles & Past Controversies - YouTube

I found this a very interesting discussion but I like Mat anyway and was inerested in his story.

At about 50 minutes in he discusses Elon and Tesla and I think his take on him is spot on and one I would agree with. It's clear he is an admirer but becoming a lot less so although he is very careful with what he says..

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120002978#Comment_120002978

I'm very surprised boards doesn't have a mod review before comments are posted.

No I haven't been on the thread, I usually avoid political threads because it's just an echo chamber.

Why do you say racist ? I bet most of the comments have been removed.

liamog

Mod Note: Don't drift the thread into discussion of boards.ie structure/moderation, as far as I'm aware boards is neither owned by Tesla or Elon Musk

magicbastarder

worth a read.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/12/why-elon-musks-twitter-affair-could-cots-him-tesla.html

DublinWriter

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120003970#Comment_120003970

...yet. Muaw-haw-haw!

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120004021#Comment_120004021

I suppose an interesting follow up question would be if Elon leaves Tesla, or gets ousted, would Tesla stand to gain or lose?

IMO, in the early days Elon was very much the driving force behind their success, but now the company can stand on its own merits and would probably benefit from some more stability and focusing on its core business (and ditching the Tesla bots)

I don't think Elon is bringing anything to the table at this point other than his name and reputation. There's enough smart people working there that the company isn't going to lose any knowledge it can't replace

What it might lose if Elon goes is some of the exceptionalism that sets it apart from the industry. Tesla would likely drift a bit closer to the Toyotas and VWs of this world

cannco253

Tesla, Elon Musk’s ATM, becomes collateral damage as Twitter storm rages

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/2022/12/16/tesla-elon-musks-atm-becomes-collateral-damage-as-twitter-storm-rages/

RetroEncabulator

This is the problem with building a brand around one personality.

Some buyers won’t necessarily focus on Musk’s antics, but many will and particularly in the US where he’s engaging directly in politics and alienating a lot of would be Tesla customers.

It’s also happening at a time when other manufacturers are rapidly catching up with Tesla as the EV market matures and expands and inevitably is becoming more competitive.

Tesla is massively overvalued but I think he may well end up being the prick that bursts the bubble.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120004665#Comment_120004665

Yeah if we take the example of Steve Jobs, who seems an apt comparison, it's pretty obvious that Apple learned the hazards of having an outspoken CEO at the helm. Tim Cook by contrast doesn't seem to have a strong opinion about anything, or at least he's better at keeping quiet until he knows the winning side

I dunno about Elon alienating potential customers, there does seem to be indications of excess stock in inventory but that could easily be attributed to inflation and interest rates rising.

It's quite possible that there's a few customers turned off by Elon's antics but there's probably as many who put a reservation down, realised around delivery time that the numbers didn't add up and cancelled their order

One thing I will say is that if Elon's plan was to make Tesla more appealing to conservative leaning buyers, and he's caused more liberal customers to ditch Tesla, then it seems to have been a fairly abject failure

RetroEncabulator

To place your brand in the middle of an American culture wars debate, and on the side that most of your most likely customers aren’t on is … well … at best a spectacular miscalculation.

Tesla could have happily motored along without any fuss.

I think the comparisons with Jobs are very limited. The only issue there was that the distinction between Jobs and Apple was becoming blurred, but he wasn’t a particularly controversial character in the public space and tended to be rather low key and private beyond his tech sector role. You certainly didn’t see him intervening in politics or making toxic public statements. I know there may have been internal politics and some people didn’t like him, but it was corporate tech sector internal clash of personalities stuff. It was nothing like this at all.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120004843#Comment_120004843

Well Jobs had a few moments, guy was apparently a total prick to work with. He seemed to learn to keep his mouth shut towards the end

But Elon definitely seems to be trying to outdo everyone else. Here I was thinking it doesn't get crazier than the My Pillow guy 😂

I absolutely agree that politics make for bad business. There's a reason almost every major brand tries to stay away from taking a strong stance on anything politically sensitive. At least until they've got a good handle on their customers views

MojoMaker

Well Jobs may have appeared milder in the public space, but put it into temporal context - where exactly was he going to shout in the mid-90s? A letter to the NY Times maybe?

Also, these days, there are a lot more idiots available and ready to listen.

RetroEncabulator

I think it’s easy for us in Ireland to see Tesla and Musk’s politics as two distinct things because they don’t really impact us. It’s just something happening over there and they’re just an EV brand.

It’s very different if you’re in the US in the midst of almost unprecedented political and social turmoil and the CEO of a car brand is taking centre stage in all of that.

You could easily see why a lot of Americans may find the brand suddenly becomes very tainted.

You’re not going to see American conservative petrol heads suddenly start buying EVs just because of the CEO but you could easily see the toxicity of all this meaning someone picks up a less controversial brand.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120005008#Comment_120005008

I'm not sure about the more idiots statement, although I guess population growth would explain that.

I do agree that stupidly is more accessible than ever 😫

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120005036#Comment_120005036

True and I would say that in the past 5 years there's been a huge upswing in brands "picking sides"

However they tend to try and walk a fine line and I feel that since Biden became president there's been a deliberate effort from many companies to be a bit more neutral

Like they'll all generally agree on some things like climate change is bad, gender and racial equality is good. But there's fewer instances now of companies coming publicly supporting protesters unless it's to their obvious market benefit

Mad_maxx

What exactly has Musk said?