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by notahacker 2722 days ago
I don't have a problem with drinking and am sure most CEOs drink at networking events considered part of their job, but I'd think a CEO showing off by downing a couple of shots on a comedian's podcast was a bit of a liability, even if it wasn't his idea. More so if their leadership was already under scrutiny and one of their businesses was entirely reliant on the patronage of an abstinence-obsessed government that wouldn't let their contractors' staff anywhere near their projects if they'd been known to have touched alcohol recently. And there's no defending the lame 420 joke which fits in the same bracket (the sort of joke that was a pretty pathetic way of getting lunchtime detention as a teenager, never mind a hefty fine and stripped of a measure of control of one of your companies). You can be 100% pro legalisation and in favour of CEOs smoking pot every day if it works for them and still think Musk's acted like an absolute idiot over it.
1 comments
drcross 2722 days ago
>I'd think a CEO showing off by downing a couple of shots on a comedian's podcast was a bit of a liability.

You need to lighten up. Musk doesn't owe anything to anyone, if anything he garnered interest for selling more cars to the 18 million people that watched that podcast. If the CEO of <any fortune 500 company> was on the same podcast, do you think it would have been anywhere close to as entertaining?

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notahacker 2722 days ago
> Musk doesn't owe anything to anyone, if anything he garnered interest for selling more cars to the 18 million people that watched that podcast

He owes a lot to his shareholders, and wiped 9% off the value of Tesla with that podcast. If he has to be entertaining as well as reassuring them he's also laser focused on solving production challenges - and CEO of an engineering company is definitely a job description where being dull is no disadvantage - there were certainly better ways of doing it.

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xbmcuser 2721 days ago
No he doesn't owe anything much to the stock holders either. They put in money knowing he was at the helm now if they have problem with how he behaves they can take out their money or buy enough voting shares that they can remove him.
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heavyset_go 2722 days ago
> Musk doesn't owe anything to anyone

Investors and board members definitely think otherwise.

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