Elon Musk Goes Full Conspiracy Theorist, Blames Big Oil for Tesla's Negative Media Coverage

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

Presented without comment.

(I'm laughing like a hyena, but that's not really a comment).

Elon Musk Goes Full Conspiracy Theorist, Blames Big Oil for Tesla's Negative Media Coverage

Elon Musk's list of people responsible for Tesla's shortcomings - now inclusive of the NTSB, internet trolls and the financial media - and notably not inclusive of Elon Musk, continues to grow. Today's addition? The conspirators running the big oil companies.

It appears that billionaire CEO Elon Musk is convinced that big oil executives have taken time out of their perversely cash generative work days to pin the financial media against him and his cash incinerating company. 

The latest surprising, yet oddly not surprising, news from the world of the Tesla media relations dumpster fire comes courtesy of Elon Musk once again taking to Twitter and raging about the powers that be who are holding Tesla back from its inevitable glorious zenith as the green energy company that will save the world.

...

[BlackTortoise + 103]

 He is a fraud. I really believed in all his ideas, well almost all,  but as the time goes by, he's loosing it. He is loosing my trust and patience. After he used all excuses for his failures, Big Oil conspiracy finally comes. 

[Guest]

What's scary is how many projections are based in EV technology that doesn't yet exist. And this guy is supposed to be at the forefront of developing these new technologies.

I have to give him credit for what he's accomplished, but he's the captain of his own ship. If he's not meeting expectations that's on him. 

[John Foote + 1,135]

The man is gifted at getting folks to invest in him. But the market cap for Tesla is mania based. Telsa has been good for the auto industrty as a market disrupter, and forcing better our of the mainstream, but really, a profitable car company? Maybe a profitable electrical storage company one day. 

[Adam Varga + 123]

A real showman created by media and now he turns against them because they are not writing nice things about him any more. Tesla got the right idea but Musk has bitten off more than he can chew at this point. 

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

Where can I buy an overpriced EV that semi-autonomously drives into objects, and also has exploding batteries? Asking for a friend.

[PeterfromCalgary + 60]

Tesla is burning through cash and seems to have new problems everyday.   This will not end well for Tesla stock and debt holders.

Edited May 24, 2018 by PeterfromCalgary

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

It pains me to see this. Musk should lay off Twitter for a while and make some cars. Or get professional help. It looks like he needs it. I'm not being sarcastic.

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

Marina, Elon has admitted in the past that he is bipolar.

[JunoTen + 118]

It doesn't really matter what happens to Tesla, since all American and European majors have announced plans to further their EV catalogue and focus on EVs and autonomous mobility. Big Oil is indeed in trouble and should start "conspirating" if they haven't yet...

[Rodent + 1,424]

5 hours ago, Tom Kirkman said:

Marina, Elon has admitted in the past that he is bipolar.

I think he said it was "possible" that he was bipolar. I doubt it. I would think more ADD or ADHD. 

[Selva + 252]

3 hours ago, Rodent said:

I think he said it was "possible" that he was bipolar. I doubt it. I would think more ADD or ADHD. 

I agree, he definitely has problem with focusing on one thing, so he jumps from one to another without finishing the first one.  Classical attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. 

[TomTom + 183]

Elon Musk is unstoppable (just like his cars with failing brakes...)

[Rodent + 1,424]

I was chatting with a colleague today and discussing a possible Twitter showdown between Musk and Trump. I'd like to see that.

[James Weaver + 17]

16 hours ago, Tom Kirkman said:

Where can I buy an overpriced EV that semi-autonomously drives into objects, and also has exploding batteries? Asking for a friend.

There is one stuck to a lamp post just down the street that can be had cheap. Just a bit of bondo and a touch of paint and presto it's as good as new. (batteries not included)

[James Weaver + 17]

1 hour ago, Rodent said:

I was chatting with a colleague today and discussing a possible Twitter showdown between Musk and Trump. I'd like to see that.

Oh Yes....The ultimate "Tall Tale" battle. Put me down for 2 tickets.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

18 hours ago, John Foote said:

The man is gifted at getting folks to invest in him. But the market cap for Tesla is mania based. Telsa has been good for the auto industrty as a market disrupter, and forcing better our of the mainstream, but really, a profitable car company? Maybe a profitable electrical storage company one day. 

   Tesla will be profitable once it goes through a Chapter 11 and a Sec. 363 asset purchase.  The existing shareholders will be wiped out, the asset buyer, probably a hedge fund, will take the engineering, move that Reno plant to Ohio (where they can find serious industrial workers, not those casino-croupier recycles to actually run the production lines), dump the expensive and useless touch-screen electronics, get back to a basic car, and make money. 

It will never be a profitable electric storage company.  They are using the wrong technology for that. Cheers.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

17 hours ago, PeterfromCalgary said:

Tesla is burning through cash and seems to have new problems everyday.   This will not end well for Tesla stock and debt holders.

It ends in the bankruptcy courts.  Same as Washington Mutual. 

[John Foote + 1,135]

That someone gets a “haircut” to make a business profitable is not at all unusual. The amount of stockholders buying into Tesla is unusual. I’ve been to the plant when it was joint Toyota/GM. Toyota methods bought that antique facility some good years, but that is no place to build mass market cars. 

[John Foote + 1,135]

Oddly enough I was in electrical storage technology meeting earlier this week. For backing up your house, I tend to agree with you, but a few of those walls units will blow up to change people’s opinion.

i thought the car plant was in Fremont, not that the cost structure of Silicon Valley supports car manufacturing, but those people work hard.

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

4 hours ago, James Weaver said:

There is one stuck to a lamp post just down the street that can be had cheap. Just a bit of bondo and a touch of paint and presto it's as good as new. (batteries not included)

Heh heh, that sounds like a bargain.

All it needs now is a new battery that won't explode - but that technology might take a while.

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

10 hours ago, Rodent said:

I think he said it was "possible" that he was bipolar. I doubt it. I would think more ADD or ADHD. 

Elon Musk Admits He Is Bipolar

 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

4 hours ago, John Foote said:

Oddly enough I was in electrical storage technology meeting earlier this week. For backing up your house, I tend to agree with you, but a few of those walls units will blow up to change people’s opinion.

i thought the car plant was in Fremont, not that the cost structure of Silicon Valley supports car manufacturing, but those people work hard.

Elon set up his battery building plant in the desert outside of Reno.  He picked Reno as it was just over the border from California and he would be out from underneath the skirts of those loony California regulators.  Now the problem with Reno is: (1)  the workforce has no industrial experience.  If you want to build cars or batteries or anything else on a production line then you go where there is generational and institutional knowledge, or you start spending North-Slope type cash for your production. What's wrong with Ohio?  What's wrong with Michigan?  I mean, come on - go where the trained workforce is. That Reno plant is a gigantic mess.   Problem (2) is that the plant is serviced by an unreliable electric generator, and those battery assembly lines require uninterrupted power.  One little blip in the electricity service and staggeringly vast numbers of battery cells in the production sequence are scrap.  What is holding back Elon is the inability to build those batteries.  That plant is a monster, a "Super-Factory," they call it the "GigaFactory," and has plenty of room to build the Model 3, the Tesla Truck, the Roadster, and pretty much whatever else comes out of the fantasy cloud.  And meanwhile the Tesla stockholders and lenders are paying to air-condition that monster. 

Elon Musk has made so many bad decisions, stuff that would get any hired CEO fired with a clawback on his pay, that it totally staggers me.  He bought and built a monster factory in Buffalo, NY that supposedly would manufacture "solar tiles," where you put these tiles on a house and there are these solar electric cells embedded into the tile.  That plant is so big it could likely put three thousand men to work.  Governor Cuomo had the State of NY throw more cash at it.  when all was done, total output of those solar tiles:  zero. 

Would you put up with Musk's rubbish and antics if you were sitting on that Board of Directors?  I sure wouldn't.  Compliant Boards are the Achilles Heel of corporations.  

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

I tend to get amused when people get upset about my inane comments.  Go for it, feel free to comment whatever the heck you like, I *encourage* people to speak their minds. 

LinkedIn sent me an email alert that someone (who shall remain un-named) had written a comment about my comments to this article over on LinkedIn (I had posted my exact same opening comment for this Elon article over on LinkedIn).

Unfortunately, this person deleted their comment on LinkedIn before I could respond : (

Here's a screencap of the deleted comment on the LinkedIn thread, from the email alert (I covered up the name and job title)

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

7 minutes ago, Tom Kirkman said:

Quote from your mystery correspondent:  "Have you develop a truck that is 25% cheaper than any other option!?  [sic]. "

OK, let's look at Mr. Tesla's famous Class 8 over-the-road heavy tractor truck. 

Tesla plans to run that with a monster battery, something weighing in at about 10,000 lbs.  To recharge that in a reasonable time, considering that heavy trucks tend to be in-service for 20 hours a day, it would have to recharge with a current flow rate of 2,000 amps.  Tesla's market pitch is that he will build or modify truck stops to handle a dozen to 19 tractors for simultaneous recharge - all at prices below the cost of the power. So you are looking at inflow currents of 20,000 to 30,000 amps.  (Don't stand too close.)

And how do you propose to do that?  You are not going to be able to pull that from some local town grid, not from the installed service at that truck stop, so you have to figure something else out. And you have to do that on the cheap as you are all fresh out of CAPEX.  My guess is that Elon will do that by going to those ship breakers in India and picking up monster ship's diesels.  Then he will mate those with giant generators, and put the package a discreet 1/2 mile down the road from that truck stop that is re-charging his electric trucks. Then Musk can go buy heavy fuel oil from the Canadian Tar Sands producers, truck it to his truck-stop, and burn that in the 60,000-hp ship's diesel to get the juice to recharge those electric trucks.  Hey, should work.