A week ago, Elon Musk announced that he owned 9.2% of Twitter and would be joining the board of directors. Twitter stock rose. By Thursday, everyone was already tired of his bullshit and Twitter stock began to drop. Over the weekend Musk withdrew from the board and on Monday Twitter stock opened higher.
Lesson: Elon seems like a good idea until you're forcefully reminded that, really, he isn't. He's fine at running his own companies but he's basically just a shitposting troll everywhere else.
He's going to try to oust the current board and install his own guys
Some people have this weird idea that someone who is really good at one thing will also be good at other things. For example, don't hire a reality show host to run your country!
Exactly. Expertise is narrow. Luck is ephemeral. And yet, people seem to apply a transitive property to it that it does not have.
I think someone also told him that he'd have some fiduciary responsibilities if he sat on the Board, and could get sued by Twitter shareholders every time he says something that affects the Twitter share price.
If he wanted that, he would have bought a significant interest in the company in the first place instead of a large amount that's below that threshold.
He's the only one doing anything to save us all so allowances need to be made.
Also according to the Ukranians fighting on the ground in the east, his Starlink shipment has been an enornous help.
Doing good once doesn't mean all your things are good. Hitler liked pets and was a vegetarian. Cosby made good educational shows but also raped women. One good thing does not make everything else good.
https://www.nytimes.com/1991/09/21/opinion/l-don-t-put-hitler-among-the-vegetarians-800991.html#:~:text=2)%3A%20%22Adolf%20Hitler%20was,his%20primary%20diet%20included%20meat.
Or we could give an example such as how FDR cheated on his wife, or Dwight Eisenhower maybe did while overseas as well.
I mean, we still like those people, right?
Hitler allocated the funds for the Autobahn, & Cosby likes pudding.
Everything else is immaterial.
It should be obvious why Dudebro isn't taking a board seat - he'd have to agree to behave in Twitter's best interests. And why would he want to agree to treat his new toy well? He only bought it to impress his friends, he doesn't care about resale value.
I'm pretty sure that Elon Musk is just pump-and-dump personified.
That would require there be communication and pumping and dumping, which has never, ever, given the whit of evidence.
Anyone with a big enough following will shift stock prices by their words intentional or not.
CC: Grimes's vajayjay.
Every time I am stuck driving behind a Tesla I realize that it is impossible to know which is worse, its self-driving feature or the actual drivers being in control.
Does Musk actually run his own companies? Or does he just tweet about them?
I'd like to see evidence that he's fine at running his own companies!
Tesla: company that is widely overvalued. So investors seem to believe Musk is fine at running companies. The product is good looking but with poor quality (sign of poor operations). Tesla market share of the EV market has gone from 80% in 2020 to 70% in 2021 (Tesla volume has increased though). The pickup truck is delayed, was supposed to sell end of last year (again, another sign of poor operations). The auto-pilot is also delayed indefinitely (check Atrios for regular updates of auto-pilot not happening).
Boring company: got lot of media for buying some used boring machine from China. Is it doing fine? Can't tell.
Hyperloop: not happening, is it? Hype, and nothing else.
SpaceX: another company whose valuation I don't understand. I guess it sends rockets up in space. Starlink is a nice product, but not the only LEO satellite constellation and these have been hard to operate/monetize in the past.
It seems it's all quite speculative and it's valued based upon an expectation to deliver at some point in the future. I don't know if it's like WeWork where it's successful until you start looking a bit more closely.
As someone from the UK, he reminds me a lot of Richard Branson - he's clearly got an eye for actual useful products that are mildly innovative (as opposed to, say, Donald Trump who is and always has been a grifter) but everything still has to be all about him.
Unlike Branson, he doesn't need to be #1. Elon didn't have the first Roadster, he hasn't flown in space, he doesn't have a big house, his company videos don't center on him, etc.
He sure does enjoy doing his new product announcements in front of a crowd of adulating Elon fan boys. Occasionally one of the new products comes to market after 3 or 4 years.
Hyperloop is a design he contributed to, not a company he runs.
Boring has built multiple tunnels. They're nit profitable, but nearly no startups are.
SpaceX is the cheapest, most reliable, most used US orbital launch company.
Anyone who mentions market share is dubious in their smarts. To remain at 80% of a growing market - for every car another manufacturer built, they'd have to build four more. Which would mean they'd have to grow at an ever increasing percentage. It's already nearly unbelievable at 87% last year. Ford delivered 5% fewer cars last year and GM delivered 13% fewer.
I will give Tesla this: it's not Waymo.
"I'd like to see evidence that he's fine at running his own companies!...Tesla: company that is widely overvalued."
In late stage capitalism the point is stock value, so there is your evidence that he is quite a bit more than fine at running his own companies.
Sure but as his market share decreases so does his overall revenue even if he sells more cars. Right now his revenue model is dependent upon selling credits to other manufacturers.
Elon likes being in charge. He joined Tesla, drove out the founders, and then sued to be retroactively named a founder. He hates being on boards where he is just one of a dozen or so people and not all the special.
The Tesla 'founder' who left wanted to make a range-extending-trailer instead of a charging network? That's the guy you want to pin as being ousted?
You are arguing he needed to be ousted, not that he wasn't ousted.
Can someone please explain to me again why whatever he does is considered newsworthy? Hmmm
There are many CEOs, many billionares of all sorta all over the world who do many things who don't wind up on the front page.
Why him?
Because “we” as over-clocked chimps, broadly speaking still seek an enlightened despot to admire and follow as our troop leader. Some look to CEOs-as-comicbook-heroes, some look to an omnipotent being in the heavens, some look to the ones telling them what they want to hear to feel better about themselves. Sometimes there can be overlap.
Because he just bought something, a large chunk of it, that's kinda important... whether you think he should be able to do that or not.
Depending on stock price, most days he's the richest guy in the world (at least that's what I read). "World's richest man" is always a curiosity that generates headlines. That was the case for Rockefeller. That was the case for Getty. That was the case for Gates.
I have a friend. He's a tech guy. I really like him. He is generous and thoughtful. He has a sound moral foundation and good manners.
Except when he is posting online, where he comes off as a raging asshole. The trick to understanding him is that he is spectrum and has no understanding of what might be called "secondary effects" or "subtext". There is no subtext with him.
I think Elon is a bit like my friend.
And yes, oh yes, does Elon run his companies. Maybe too much, frankly.
I was struck by Elon being in the paint shop debugging the painting software during the early production crises of the Model 3. Elon is undoubtably a good coder, but a CEO's job is to hire other talented people who hire other talented people to deal with the painting software.
It would be awesome if musk destroyed titter, but its users have no shame.