Tesla

[Phoebe]

For many years I thought I wanted to buy one of these cars. I was waiting until they got things rolling so that there would be a more substantial network for charging stations, access to repair, maybe even a used vehicle market, and so on. That was great because I didn't want to spend the cash on a vehicle anyway.

Then I considered buying some of their stock, but the company seem to be so weirdly managed, and the stock price so locked in to future success, that I didn't want to bet any money on it.

Now we see not only that Musk is being very erratic and strange, in a way that does not inspire confidence in his ability to manage the company, but now he's talking about getting Saudi Arabia to invest in taking it private. Doesn't it make you wonder what on Earth is wrong that he would want this? I wish he would move on to his next project, to space or whatever, and let somebody else manage Tesla and make some cars. Maybe I'm wrong and he's doing great, I don't know. I worry something is wrong with the company and the cars, such that it's not a good idea to buy one. Will they be around for twenty years, getting better? Or is it failing?

[mimekiller]

I think Tesla will be fine, just a product of being online, Musk gets into weird feuds, not used to heads of companies being as extremely online as we all are I guess. You're prob safe to buy a car if you can afford it.

[Phoebe]

The other day I saw the only person I know who has a Tesla, and she absolutely loves it. They really do need to get rid of that dude though. Unless his goal is some how to manipulate their stock price by doing crazy s*** in public, he's becoming a liability.

[mimekiller]

I'm not sure if he's done anything "crazy", certainly ill advised and he's taken some PR hits lately but the world will see something new that's shiny and all will be well. I mean him smoking weed with Joe Rogan already seems like AGES ago.

[Phoebe]

I think babbling about how he wanted to take the stock private at ... $420 ... and then backtracking a week later, followed by his pot smoking incident, qualifies as crazy behavior. SpaceX is still a defense contractor, is it not? Maybe in the age of our most important leaders being batshit crazy, this guy hanging his shirttails out is no big deal, and maybe I'm the crazy one if I want rather more measured behavior among people who make the big decisions and whose screw ups could put many people at risk.
[I am not one of the linguistic purists who associates the word crazy only with specific diagnoses of mental illness, because imo that's not even the main way the word is used anymore, nor has it been for a long time, but if it were I'm not sure it's inappropriately applied here.]
Anyway, if it were my dime or my company, I'd want the CEO to get his shit a bit more closely together.