| > His twitter post was clear, he was "considering" taking TSLA private. $420 funding secure indicates he already had financing ready. Why has this mystery funder never materialized. > Anyone who bought in at this news would have been buying in for < $84 per share (split adjusted). Current stock price is 600 per share+. This is hugely problematic as a response. Elon Musk's behavior is unethical whether Tesla stock went up or down. The stock price should not be used as justification for previous lies. If we accept that, then we accept markets where people can gamble on a lie and things are fine if their gamble works out. That's not the business culture I want to create. People should be honest about risks so that they can be properly evaluated. > The problem the SEC has had in trying to charge him is that folks feel like the SEC really ignore some of the clear scam behavior by big players. Elon Musk is literally the second biggest player! Ignoring his malfeasance creates more people willing to emulate him. > Fail to deliver? No issue. Broker bad behavior and theft? Light FINRA slaps on the wrist. Complaints about Madoff? Investigate the complainers. CEO talking about potential to take a company private publically - all out WAR by SEC! You won't find me giving a kind word to the SEC's currently regulatory practices, but we need to recognize that corporate culture is made from examples. When someone like Elon Musk publicly flouts all responsible corporate behavior, and doesn't have an example made of him, then that is going to breed people willing to make the exact same decisions. > He said he is considering something. It was not definite. "Funding secured" is definite. > Yes - people want to make this into a huge crime. But he explained in his tweets pretty transparently to most what his thinking was. It is a huge crime. In the middle of trading, he decided to fraudulently claim he had a buyout offer for his company. That screws over not just short sellers, but any one who had calls above the $420 a share price. There is no universe where that is healthy for our markets. > if you read between lines - the contempt court case got a bit of an eye roll from the judge involved. He's currently in a court case for his buyout of Solar City, where he announced a fake product, used it as reasoning for his one public company to buy a company that he, his brother, and his cousin's had the largest stake in, and he, his brother, and his other companies (Tesla and SpaceX) were the largest bondholders in. This is a cartoonish set of conflicts of interest here. But apparently that shouldn't matter, because "stock price." |
The short sellers around tesla have been pathetic. Note I don't own any tesla stock, but the short seller hype train is just ridiculous around tesla. How there has been no action there is mind boggling.
He's a crazy guy willing to take crazy risks - look at SpaceX -> they are operating COMPLETELY outside all norms.
Despite these "huge crimes" - no prosecutor anywhere is prosecuting. The SEC efforts basically fell pretty flat - their contempt attempts also fell flat.
The conflicts with solar city were crazy - they were also public. I thought it was a terrible deal - but that was public too. If you think Elon is bad for tesla and you own stock vote him out by running your own board slate. But he has a vision for a fully integrated solar and powerwall type product no barriers. You get an app, the sun charges the battery. They had and have ideas around charging cars mixed into that. Not sure if it's a good idea - plenty of competitors coming for Tesla, but they may be able to deliver something here with their solar / energy AND car companies. And the trend is towards this type of integration - so he gets to take a crack at it.
And a heads up, if these solar city folks win their case - guess who is going to get the money. Yes, TESLA! I've followed the case a bit. Not super impressive (aside from the plaintiffs attorneys vomiting in court! What was going on!).
Importantly, you are Elon, you own 22% of two companies - Tesla and SolarCity with highly overlapping missions. You want to integrate solar / energy / cars. I mean, what would YOU do. Go do a deal with some company in China the way others have tried? These folks saying it's such a bad idea / deal - what was their much better proposal? Elon already knew the Solarcity board and management etc etc. I really am curious what was the amazingly better option to get where Elon wanted to go. Easy to criticize, harder (much) to do.