[gaijin]

I heard him snap at the investors on that recent conference call and I was really amazed.

I thought I’d hear some of their “boring questions” and in fact they were extremely reasonable.

I’m a big Elon fan and I was shocked.

This is just the second time that I think the strain is really, REALLY beginning to show.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

In before the Elon Musk is God crowd.

[deadrock]

The gravy train has left the station.

[GOP Poet]

Leaders and visionaries usually survive in the long term by getting the right people around them to implement. Steve Jobs took several rides. But built the infrastructure well enough that when they threw him away Apple the company kept producing until Steve Jobs came back and then his vision and leadership took it to the next level once again.

I've not been tracking Musk's company as much as I've been tracking the personality an Elon Musk the man. I wonder how much and how well he has laid the groundwork for hiring the right people and building a functional base of a business.

As I recall Apple didn't get all these big gubermint hand outs initially that Tesla has. Steve built Apple from the ground (or shall I say garage) up with Steve W. from their own initiative and ingenuity (bringing in real investors rather than including the government.)

I guess this is the point where HOW the business foundation was built really starts to show in the stress fractures of growth.

As I'm not paying much attention to Tesla and how it grew, can others weigh in on my thoughts? From what I know, this is what I think has gone wrong. We from Musk a millenial dependency (thinking government and hand outs are good) that is showing that style (government intervention/handouts) of company building only goes so far.

[neverevergiveup]

This guy has been propped up by government subsidies for 15 years, and still doesn’t have a profitable company. According to an LA Times article in 2015, Tesla was riding on $ 4.9 Billion in government subsidy already then.

He had a window of opportunity in the electric car market, but everyone else is catching up. If Tesla loses it’s aura as a ‘visionary’ company, they will fall by the wayside. It’s astounding to me that Tesla stock ever hit $300/share. Over 58% of the holders of Tesla stock are institutions, and they will be the ones to get away unscathed if everything plummets. They are also likely the ones who have been pushing for continued subsidies of Tesla and encouraging glowing market reviews of the stock.

[jjotto]

He’s a gambler. With a Hillary presidency and a rapacious EPA, Musk would have made billions. With a freer market, he has to hope GM or Toyota feels enough social pressure to bail him out. Doubt he’ll be homeless regardless.

[StoneWall Brigade]

Thoughts?

[aquila48]

The main reason he hasn’t taken SpaceX public. He doesn’t want to put up with all the constant wall street pestering.

[t4texas]

The norm in most thought is plans is 3-5 years.

[jz638]

Tesla has a big upside in the commercial trucking sector. To get there though, Musk has to ride this roadster ruse long enough to get the technology mature. If Tesla becomes a viable passenger car company along the way, all the better.

The big downside to Tesla cars is that no matter how much you pay for one, you will never really own it. Musk (or more likely one of his creditors or a malicious actor) could brick the entire fleet remotely with a software update.

[montag813]

If you were the CEO of a company that had been around for 15 years, never posted an annual profit, but had seen a nearly 1,000% appreciation in your stock

Um...that is exactly the history of Amazon.com, btw, which ONLY shows a profit because of its cloud business.

[Tallguy]

Is Elon Musk running the US Postal Service? Just askin’.