Is Elon Musk hurting Tesla?

Zurbaran

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120005528#Comment_120005528

Have a look on twitter maybe? He talks loads of crap on there.

The stock has been way overpriced compared to other brands so I’m not surprised it dropped but he certainly brought it forward and will take the blame even though it was him and his spoofing that made it go unrealistically high in the first place.

Gumbo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120005889#Comment_120005889

What if you don’t do Twitter, like 90% of the civilized world?

Jizique

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120006670#Comment_120006670

Don't tell Musk, he thinks the world hangs on his utterances

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120006670#Comment_120006670

Read the news?

DrPhilG

The fact that people are making decisions as big as what car to buy because of the CEO's political leanings sums up what's going wrong with society.

Yes its a free world, by all means decide however you wish. But it all feeds back to the obsessive political polarisation of everything.

If someone leans left, they're not automatically a loony leftie communist. If they lean right they're not automatically a Trump loving gun toting Nazi.

People here being shocked to see the political leanings of others on this thread? Wise up. Respect others decisions. Not everyone you disagree with politically is a bad person, in fact 99.99% of them are no different from you in general life.

Elon Musk is a loose cannon and a bit of a weirdo. But he's a million miles away from doing anything to make me disown his brand. I hope to own a Tesla someday, just don't have the finances yet.

Mad_maxx

If Musk was ousted as Tesla CEO, wouldn’t surprise me if the stock rebounded sharply, the big money knows it’s a winning story long term

Gumbo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120006733#Comment_120006733

I don’t seek out the news. But the news you do hear in the back ground is about him banning users from an online social platform.

Back in real life that means nothing to me.

Firing employees with massive pay offs. I do wish that was me though.

Stock price drops don’t affect me. I dabbled with them in Revolut for fun but glad I sold before the split and bought the car so I suppose I have to thank him for that.

I just couldn’t be bothered with what he does or says to be perfectly honest. I don’t follow him, I’m not hanging on his every update 🤷‍♂️

HerrKuehn

He is definitely damaging Tesla with his actions/views on Twitter. The main reason being, a lot (not all) of the customers for EV will be liberal/left. The car a person drives is making a certain statement to the world about their views and beliefs, probably more than any other consumer item. I think a lot of people will not want to be associated with Musk/Tesla. I wouldn't be happy with his behavior if I was a a Tesla investor. His job is to maximise shareholder value and I think his actions are having the opposite effect.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120006753#Comment_120006753

Well like I said there's other aspects than sales where Elon seems to be causing pain for Tesla

Offloading a whole load of shares and seemingly being AWOL from his job is definitely hurting investors

The other side is attracting talent, given Elon recently sent an ultimatum to Twitter staff to either be prepared for "hardcore" work hours to get out. And given Tesla is pretty notorious for being a tough work environment, you could see a case where younger engineers coming out of college who have a choice of employers staying away from Tesla.

Sharing your employer's political views definitely isn't a requirement for applying for a job, but if you strongly disagree with them then you're probably less likely to give extra effort than what your job requires, which Elon's businesses seem to depend on

Particularly since there's a bunch of other companies manufacturing EVs and components now, prospective employees have options now

Dohnjoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120006753#Comment_120006753

He's overseen a 50% drop in his stock in the last 3 months, many CEOs would be replaced over something like that. Then there's the fact that he's CEO of multiple companies. Then there are his increasingly bizarre antics and online tantrums.

The whole package is very worrying from an investor perspective.

PaulJoseph22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120000154#Comment_120000154

Cool, nothing cool about anything associated with that dangerous egomaniac.

PaulJoseph22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120006868#Comment_120006868

Exactly, one would sooner drive a Dacia Duster.

80sDiesel

I am thinking he bought Twitter for his amusement.

Dont forget he believes we are in a simulation. Basically humans would evolve to create multiple simulations unless they destroyed themselves. So either we are in a simulation or in base reality.

As weird as it sounds most people dont know that gravity is just time curving into space yet they experience it all their lives.

It's an interesting logical thought but the point being he is amusing himself . What , in his mind or reality, does he have to lose.

And he kinda has a point. It's not as if we get a second go at life or whatever reality he believes in

liamog

Mod Note: Moved the enviro impact discussion to https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058252347/evs-are-worse-for-the-environment-the-myth#latest

spakman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120006842#Comment_120006842

Probably not the thread for you then

Gumbo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120007928#Comment_120007928

I was quoted in a post. It’s polite to reply.

If you want just yes men to post in the tread fair enough. Yes ok.

liamog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120006753#Comment_120006753

It's not a new phenomenon for people to make purchasing decision based on the perceived ethics of a brand. Choosing to give your money to a particular company is one of the few ways the average person gets to impact a brands direction. What's relatively unusual in Tesla's case is how much the brand is tied to Elon Musk. He has chosen to make himself front and centre of the brand in ways that other automotive CEO's don't.

RetroEncabulator

It's even more of a concern when you consider that EVs are primarily bought on the basis of a environmental considerations, which means you're dealing with a cohort of very ethically motivated consumers.

Yeah, he moved EVs to a somewhat more mainstream position and made them suddenly seem 'cooler' but that isn't enough to retain market share if you're starting to do all the things that are likely to really annoy that kind of consumer, which is exactly what he is doing.

I mean, this is heading to a point where it's like trying to selling solar panels under the Trump brand or something. It's just doesn't work.

He's too politically charged and he is very much the ambassador for the brand. So, his politics in most people's minds are now Tesla's politics. His statements are Tesla's statements.

I honestly think Tesla needs to ditch him, distance themselves from his politics and ranting and just move on.

AndrewJRenko

To get back to the main topic, seeing as Tesla lost $25 billion of value in the last 24 hours and Musk is arguing on Twitter with his biggest Tesla investor, it is safe to say that Musk is hurting Tesla.

https://twitter.com/TheRealHoarse/status/1602330519777296384

creedp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120008497#Comment_120008497

I might be particularly nieve or completely out of touch but I bought an EV purely on financial grounds with environmental considerations being a nice secondary benefit. Maybe you're right though that the majority of EV buyers are motivated primarily on environmental / ethical gounds and if so financial incentivation policies are a complete waste of scarce public resources.

creedp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120007949#Comment_120007949

Given all the palaver surrounding the ethics of awarding the World Cup to Qatar one would expect a significant backlash against Hyundai / KIA from the ethically minded EV buyers. Somehow I think in reality they will wrestle with their conscience and continue to support the brands with gusto.

Fantana2

With the steep decline in share value is Musk in danger of a margin call on his Tesla stock which he used for the Twitter deal?

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120009431#Comment_120009431

I think he sold it all for cash, so he's in no danger. He did take a bunch of loans to buy Twitter but they're leveraged against Twitter itself, so Musk is protected if he can't repay them

He sold some more Tesla stock recently to finance the loan repayments, after saying he wouldn't. There was talk of him using the stock as security for another loan but I guess that fell through, probably when the bank's looked at his current finances and laughed at him

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120009037#Comment_120009037

Well it depends on how strongly the buyer feels about the issue at hand, and how much buying choices they have

For example it's easy enough for me to boycott Heineken for sponsoring the world cup because I don't like drinking bottled p!ss anyway

There's not so much choice when it comes to buying an EV, so I imagine as you say a lot of customers will continue their purchase

There might however be a few customers who were on the fence between a Kia and a VW or Ford and decide they'll go with one of the latter brands based on the world cup sponsorship. I doubt sales will suffer as a result, EVs are still in high demand and every customer switching brands is easily replaced

creedp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120009792#Comment_120009792

Personally I quite like Heineken.. does that mean I like to drink bottled p1ss?

I agree with you though that it's very easy for people to be passionate about supporting a worthy cause when it doesn't negatively impact on them. There's a lot of that on social media lately. In fact constantly expressing concern on so many worthy causes is probably a significant contributor to environmental damage.

PeadarCo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120009792#Comment_120009792

The problem for Tesla is not necessarily consumers but potentially that Musk is potenially driving away critical staff. Musk has come out with some anti vax tweets recently and generally appears to be promoting anti scientific views. In the short term this will have no impact but in the medium to long term will drive away critical staff to competitor's.

Given Teslas crazy public valuation over the last few years it needs some sort of technology that will put it leaps and bounds ahead of other manufacturers. Every other major car manufacturer has invested in electric cars/hybrids and as long as they make even ok cars when compared to Tesla they will compete.

To make the advances Tesla needs to make to even remotely justify the hype around it/historic share price, its essential that Tesla recruit the best staff possible. If you are a top researcher/scientist why join a company that's lead by a person who will trash other top scientists/researchers abet in a different field. It raises the question would he turn on Tesla staff if something he didn't like was discovered? Why not join another company where you don't have to deal with that risk. That's before you look at the very public staff layoffs at Twitter. It doesn't exactly encourage in demand staff to join unless you pay a significant premium(Again costing Tesla)

Again none of what I've said above will impact Tesla in the short term only medium and long term if Musk remains in charge.

josip

Well whatever about continuing as CEO of Tesla, if he keeps his word he won't be CEO of Twitter much longer.

DrPhilG

58% now with less than an hour to run.

100% guarantee he already has someone lined up for the job and this was just a way of making himself look like a good guy by stepping aside as per the wishes of the people.

If the poll had gone the other way he'd have kept going another month or so and then done it anyway.

liamog

I don't think it changes much, as the lead owner he will still be in charger of the direction of Twitter. I do think he should step down as CEO, purely so that he can focus on running Tesla and SpaceX. I don't think his style of leadership is compatible with running Twitter which is operating under a consent decree from the FTC and will be subject to the upcoming digital single market rules in the EU.

sh81722

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120013604#Comment_120013604

I had a twitter account until earlier this week but as I never used it I just decided to close it because, as you say, it's just monumental waste of time following adults bickering to each other. Now I have only LinkedIn remaining of the usual suspects. Let's hope some looney doesn't take over that next. Great if Musk will hand over the Twitter baton to somebody else, it's about time in my opinion. Somebody should just remove the phone from him and ask him to run Tesla/SpaceX instead.

Henry Ford used to say something like any publicity is good publicity but I'm not buying that. Still wouldn't stop me getting another Tesla if they stay competitive. Based you your experiences in VW thermal management and software Tesla will continue to be the golden standard in EV tech where you just drive to places without having to double guess what the car is doing to accomplish it. As long as it stays that way people will continue buying regardless of the CEO.